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THE  FOOD  CRISIS  AND 
AMERICANISM 


COPTBIQHT,  1919 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


/ 


*V 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  February,  1919 

(da/ry     Cerf^  ^  '^, 


FOREWORD 

'*  When  one  aims  at  an  error  there  he  those  who  cry 
out  J  *  He  is  trying  to  bring  down  truth/  " 

I  realize  that  when  one  states  facts  that  run  counter 
to  prejudices  or  preconceived  notions,  he  is  likely  to 
be  characterized  as  academic,  inexperienced,  impracti- 
cal or  visionary.  Hence,  not  to  interest  the  reader  in 
my  personality,  but  as  "  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is 
in  me,"  I  will  indulge  in  a  bit  of  apparent  egotism. 

I  was  born  on  a  prairie  farm,  where  as  a  manual 
laborer  I  worked  for  my  father  until  twenty-one  years 
of  age.  Later,  after  working  my  way  for  four  years 
in  one  of  the  best  Agricultural  Universities,  specializ- 
ing in  mathematics  and  agricultural  chemistry,  ill 
health  compelled  me  to  abandon  all  thought  of  literary 
or  scientific  pursuits.  So  for  more  than  forty  years 
I  have  been  actively  engaged  in  the  farm  mortgage 
business. 

By  accident,  my  first  employer  was  the  state  agent 
for  Illinois  of  the  Equitable  Loan  &  Trust  Company 
of  New  London,  Connecticut  —  the  first  company  in- 
corporated to  do  a  farm  mortgage  business;  at  least 
the  first  to  enter  into  active  operation.  That  com- 
pany failed,  and  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  practically 
all  other  companies  incorporated  for  that  purpose, 
prior  to  1896,  failed.  Must  there  not  be  some  inher- 
ent weakness  in  an  industry,  in  which,  after  giving  the 

V 


VI  FOREWORD 

heart  of  its  assets  as  security  to  voluntary  creditors, 
those  creditors  fail? 

The  effects  of  the  panic  of  1873  upon  agriculture 
were  not  seriously  felt  throughout  the  Central  West 
until  1878  and  1879.  During  that  period,  it  devolved 
upon  me  to  take  charge  of  the  foreclosed  lands  belong- 
ing to  my  employers  and  their  clients  —  see  that  they 
were  rented,  rents  collected,  taxes  paid,  and  lands  sold. 

Again,  between  1893  and  1896,  nearly  95  per  cent, 
of  my  competitors  failed  or  went  out  of  business,  and 
at  the  urgent  request  of  my  clients  I  took  charge  of 
millions  in  mortgages  which  had  been  made  by  those 
now  defunct  concerns.  A  great  many  of  these  mort- 
gages were,  of  course,  foreclosed,  and  as  a  result,  for 
nearly  ten  years,  I  had  the  control  and  management  of 
from  100,000  to  150,000  acres  of  farm  lands  scattered 
through  four  of  the  best  agricultural  States.  As  these 
lands  were  owned  by  a  very  large  number  of  indi- 
viduals and  corporations,  a  strict  account  was  kept 
with  each  tract.  None  of  these  tracts  paid  current 
interest  on  its  costs.  Poor  farming!  So  I  thought 
until  on  investigation  it  transpired  that  the  increased 
mortgage  indebtedness  on  surrounding  farms  was 
greater  than  the  shortage  of  my  farming  operations. 
This  experience,  coupled  with  my  early  labors  on  the 
farm,  gave  me,  I  think  it  will  be  admitted,  an  oppor- 
tunity to  study  the  farmer  and  his  problems  enjoyed 
by  few  during  the  last  fifty  years.  The  result  was 
not  in  keeping  with  what  I  had  hopefully  anticipated. 
Pleasing  fancies  were  dispelled  by  unpleasant  facts  — 
truth  sometimes  seems  a  cruel  thing. 

Agriculture  is  the  basic  industry  of  our  nation.     It 


FOREWORD  Vll 

engages  at  least  one-third  of  the  population.  It 
should  receive  more  serious  consideration  than  any- 
other  industry;  both  in  and  out  of  Congress  it  receives 
less.  Every  other  civilized  country  has,  during  the 
last  sixty  years,  bettered  its  agricultural  conditions 
and  enormously  increased  its  yield  per  acre  of  cereals. 
We  have  not  done  so  to  any  appreciable  extent.  For 
fourteen  years  prior  to  the  beginning  of  this  war,  the 
average  wheat  yield  per  acre  of  France  was  approxi- 
mately 36  per  cent,  above  ours;  that  of  Germany,  107 
per  cent,  above;  and  that  of  England,  124  per  cent, 
above.  (See  1914  Year  Book.)  Had  our  191 7 
wheat  yield  per  acre  been  on  a  parity  with  those  coun- 
tries, we  could  have  sent  to  the  Allies  an  amount  of 
wheat  equal  to  our  entire  yield  for  that  year,  and  have 
had  a  superabundance  for  home  consumption.  No 
national  economic  policy  is  sound,  nor  can  it  long  en- 
dure, that  fails  to  give  due  consideration  to  this,  our 
great  creative  class,  nor  in  whose  counsels  the  farm- 
er's voice  is  not  heard. 

For  nearly  three  years  the  American  people  rejected 
all  evidence  as  to  the  sinister  and  brutal  motives  of 
Kaiserism,  accepting  instead  fairy  tales,  spun  by  the 
pacifists,  to  show  that  the  brotherhood  of  man  was  es- 
tablished on  earth,  and  that  war  could  come  no  more. 
In  blood  and  money  we  are  paying  the  penalty  of  our 
unbelief.  It  is  as  dangerously  unwise  to  reject  a  truth 
because  it  is  disagreeable  as  to  cherish  an  error  because 
''  beautiful,  if  true."  People  who  do  the  one  usually 
do  the  other. 

Should  the  American  people  refuse  to  recognize  in 
the  trend  of  events  certain  economic,  socialistic,  if  not 


Vlll  FOREWORD 

anarchistic,  tendencies  ?    These  must  be  met.     Delays 
are  dangerous. 

In  this  book,  I  have  tried  to  give  the  results  of  my 
observation  and  experience.  If  errors  have  crept  into 
the  work,  I  regret  it,  and  shall  be  glad  to  have  my 
attention  called  to  them.  I  have  endeavored  con- 
servatively and  accurately  to  tell  the  truth. 

William  Stull. 
Omaha,  July,  191 8. 


THE  FOOD  CRISIS  AND 
AMERICANISM 


THE  FOOD  CRISIS  AND 
AMERICANISM 


"  111  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay ; 
Princes  and  lords  may  flourish,  or  may  fade; 
A  breath  can  make  them,  as  a  breath  has  made; 
But  a   bold    Peasantry,   their   Country's    pride, 
When  once  destroy'd,  can  never  be  supplied." 

CHAPTER  I 

The  most  serious  and  one  of  the  most  pressing  ques- 
tions of  to-day  is, —  What  is  the  matter  with  Ameri- 
can agriculture,  that  it  is  breaking  down  at  the  most 
critical  period  in  the  nation's  history? 

After  twenty-two  years  during  which  time  not  a 
single  State  has  suffered  a  general  crop  failure,  but  in 
the  main  crops  have  been  unusually  abundant,  why  was 
it  that  before  a  battalion  of  our  troops  had  reached  the 
firing  line,  our  Government  was  suggesting  —  and  has 
since  made  compulsory  —  a  restriction  of  wholesome 
food  in  our  homes  ?  Our  country  has  an  almost  limit- 
less area  of  fertile  soil,  with  a  topography  in  the  high- 
est degree  adapted  to  the  use  of  farm  machinery. 
Climatic  conditions  are  highly  favorable  to  the  produc- 
tion of  all  essential  foods.  Our  farmers  are  the  most 
intelligent  the  world  has  ever  known.  All  this,  coupled 
with  the  inventive  genius  of  our  people,  should  enable 
the  American  farmers  to  feed  the  world.     Yet  there 


2/^/:i:lTnt'Fiok^    crisis   AND   AMERICANISM 

is  no  civilized  country  in  which,  during  the  ten  years 
prior  to  the  declaration  of  war,  consumers  have  paid 
so  much  for  their  food,  or  where  fertile  fields  have 
been  to  such  an  extent  abandoned,  neglected  or  illy 
tilled,  and  the  farmers  received  so  little  for  their 
products. 

That  evils  exist  is  obvious ;  that  whatever  they  may 
be,  they  should  be  speedily  remedied,  is  imperative. 

Labor  and  marketing  conditions  are  responsible  for 
the  present  deplorable  situation.  These  have  grown 
out  of  the  two  basic  evils;  the  one,  that  we  have  Ex- 
alted idleness ;  the  other  that  we,  as  a  people,  have  be- 
come over-commercialized. 

The  first  was  largely  due  to  an  error  or  oversight  in 
the  development  of  our  public  school  system,  the  evil 
consequences  of  which  no  one  seemed  to  foresee;  that 
is,  when  the  high  school  supplanted  the  seminary,  it 
took  over  the  curriculum  of  the  seminary. 

The  chief,  if  not  the  sole,  purpose  and  function  of 
the  seminary  was  to  prepare  the  pupil  for  college. 
The  college  was  to  prepare  him  for  still  another 
school  —  law,  medicine,  theology  or  literature;  and 
one  so  educated,  who  failed  to  follow  one  of  these 
professions,  was  usually  looked  upon  as  an  ornamental, 
if  not  a  useless,  member  of  society.  His  training  had 
led  him  not  intentionally,  but  effectually,  away  from 
other  useful  vocations,  and  especially  from  manual 
labor. 

With  the  private  schools  and  colleges  this  was  well. 
The  academy  served  its  purpose.  It  responded  to 
the  needs  of  a  certain  particular  class  which  was  will- 
ing to  pay  for  it.     It  directly  affected  a  trifling  per- 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  3 

centage  of  the  American  people,  but  nevertheless  was 
an  important  factor  in  the  evolution  of  the  nation. 
On  the  contrary,  the  public  schools  are  for  all  classes 
—  the  children  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men. 
The  mingling  of  these  children  form  one  of  the  strong- 
est ties  that  bind  the  American  people  together,  but  to 
attempt  to  educate  all  the  American  children  along 
these  academic  lines, —  that  is,  that  each  grade  pre- 
pares a  pupil  for  the  next,  and  the  next  —  one  school 
for  another  —  and  each  school  for  still  another, — 
neglecting  the  "  Ninety  and  nine  "  to  serve  the  one, — 
is  not  only  futile,  but  a  menace  to  democracy.  Yet, 
that  seems  to  be  the  result,  if  not  the  purpose,  of  our 
public  school  system  as  it  is  now  conducted. 

That  "  man  should  eat  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of 
his  brow  "  applies  to  a  very  large  percentage  of  the 
human  race,  and  I  am  not  orthodox  enough  to  believe 
that  it  was  meant  as  a  curse.  Next  to  a  good  mother, 
I  count  my  greatest  earthly  blessing  that  I  was  bom 
on  a  farm,  "  stranger  alike  to  poverty  and  wealth,*' 
and  with  my  hands  labored  there  until  I  was  twenty- 
one  years  of  age. 

As  a  large  majority  of  all  the  children  of  the  coun- 
try must  labor  with  their  hands,  it  is  a  serious  blunder 
to  ignore  this  fact  in  their  education,  and  a  still  more 
serious,  if  not  a  fatal,  one  to  let  their  education  be 
such  as  to  lead  them  away  from  manual  labor. 

The  public  school  being  for  all  children,  it  should 
respond  to  the  needs  of  the  average  child.  It  is  upon 
the  average  citizen  that  the  weal  or  woe  of  our  country 
depends.  Hence,  at  whatever  point  the  child's  school 
career  be  interrupted,  whether  at  the  end  of  the  first. 


4  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

second  or  last  grade,  he  should  to  that  extent  be  a  bet- 
ter citizen  and  better  prepared  to  solve  the  problems 
confronting  the  average  youth.  Under  our  present 
school  system,  he  is  not  to  any  appreciable  extent  so 
prepared.  On  the  contrary,  as  in  the  seminary,  his 
training  tends  to  lead  him  toward  other  things.  The 
first  effect  of  this  education  is  that  it  engenders  an 
indifference  to,  if  not  a  contempt,  for,  labor  —  or  at 
least  a  feeling  that  manual  labor  is  very  disagreeable, 
if  not  degrading. 

Legitimate  commerce  has  in  all  of  its  complex  rami- 
fications but  one  function  —  the  exchange  of  com- 
modities between  the  producer  and  the  consumer. 
Five  per  cent,  of  our  population  are  sufficient  to  fulfill 
that  function.  Yet  more  than  eighty-five  per  cent,  of 
all  high  school  graduates,  and  almost  as  large  a  pro- 
portion of  the  undergraduates,  expect  to  find  lucrative 
employment  in  it.  Those  parents,  especially  of  the 
manual  laboring  class,  making  the  greatest  struggle, 
subjecting  themselves  to  the  greatest  self-denial  in  ef- 
forts to  educate  their  children,  will  give  as  the  first 
reason,  "  We  don't  want  our  children  to  work  as  we 
have  worked  " —  that  is,  to  do  manual  labor.  To  the 
infant  and  to  most  adults,  to  do  things  with  his  own 
hands  is  the  most  fascinating  of  exercises,  and  if  done 
accurately,  with  a  definite  purpose,  among  the  most 
effective  for  mental  discipline.  To  those  who  never 
expect  to  do  manual  labor  it  gives  a  quicker  sympathy 
for  and  a  clearer  understanding  of  those  who  labor 
with  their  hands.  Respect  for  labor  makes  for  better 
and  broader  citizenship.  In  spite  of  all  our  boasts 
about  giving  dignity  to  American  labor,  we  have  been 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  5 

doing  the  reverse ;  in  no  other  country  does  the  laborer 
have  so  little  pride  in  his  calling,  even  among  skilled 
workmen,  as  in  our  own.  Had  our  schools  and  col- 
leges done  as  much  to  exalt  mechanical  skill  and  effi- 
ciency as  they  have  to  develop  football  players,  labor 
conditions  and  labor  sentiment  would  be  entirely  dif- 
ferent; and  the  majority  of  those  graduating  from  our 
schools  and  colleges  would  not  shrink  from,  nor  feel 
humiliated  by,  honest  manual  toil. 

Our  high  school  graduates,  and  a  very  large  propor- 
tion of  our  college  graduates,  have  been  prepared  for 
nothing  but  to  continue  school;  so  that  they  find  to 
their  surprise  that  they  are  fitted  for  nothing  in  par- 
ticular; that  there  is  no  niche  in  every-day  life  that 
their  education  has  prepared  them  to  fill.  Nothing  is 
more  discouraging  and  nothing  leads  to  greater  dis- 
content and  bitterness  than  for  one  to  find  that  for 
which  he  has  labored,  and  esteemed  of  highest  value, 
worthless. 

So  everywhere  we  are  turning  out  malcontents  — 
young  men  and  women,  unprepared  for  anything  but 
the  most  common  manual  labor,  which  they  are 
ashamed  to  do.  The  false  glamour  thrown  about 
great  wealth  makes  their  outlook  dark.  Observing 
men,  without  rendering  any  adequate  service  to  soci- 
ety, accumulating  colossal  fortunes,  they  are  over- 
whelmed with  a  feeling  of  dependence  which  ever  en- 
genders misanthropy.  Hence,  many  of  these  become 
easy  victims  to  the  socialistic  agitator,  the  demagogue 
and  other  enemies  of  society. 

Our  sister  republics  are  all  finding  how  to  prepare 
^he  youth  and  immigrants  for  citizenship  a  perplexing 


O  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

question.  Gustave  LeBon,  one  of  the  most  profound 
of  French  thinkers,  in  discussing  the  French  school 
system,  among  other  things,  says :  "  Nobody  has  ever 
maintained  that  well-directed  instruction  may  not  give 
very  useful  practical  results."  ..."  The  acquisition 
of  knowledge  for  which  no  use  can  be  found  is  a  sure 
method  of  driving  a  man  to  revolt."  Continuing,  he 
says :  "  In  a  recent  work,  a  distinguished  magistrate, 
Adolphe  Guillot,  made  the  observation  that  at  present 
three  thousand  educated  criminals  are  met  with  for 
every  one  thousand  illiterate  delinquents,  and  that  in 
fifty  years  the  criminal  percentage  of  the  population 
has  passed  from  two  hundred  twenty-seven  to  five  hun- 
dred fifty- two  for  every  one  hundred  thousand  inhab- 
itants, an  increase  of  133  per  cent.  He  also  noted  in 
common  with  his  colleagues  that  criminality  is  par- 
ticularly on  the  increase  among  young  persons,  for 
whom,  as  is  known,  gratuitous  and  obligatory  school- 
ing has  —  in  France  —  replaced  apprenticeship."  He 
then  cites  similar  experience  in  China,  as  well  as  edu- 
cation in  India,  under  English  rule.  LeBon  further 
says :  "  It  is  evidently  too  late  to  retrace  our  steps. 
Experience  alone,  that  supreme  educator  of  peoples, 
will  be  at  pains  to  show  us  our  mistake.  It  alone  will 
be  powerful  enough  to  prove  the  necessity  of  replacing 
our  odious  text-books  and  our  pitiable  examinations 
by  industrial  instruction  capable  of  inducing  our  young 
men  to  return  to  the  fields,  to  the  workshop,  .  .  , 
which  they  avoid  to-day  at  all  costs." 

If  in  France,  with  but  one  language,  one  nationality, 
all  inheriting  the  same  history,  traditions,  habits  of 
thrift  and  industry,  with  no  influx  of  foreigners,  they 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  7 

find  the  free  school  system  a  perplexing,  if  not  a  men- 
acing, problem,  what  may  we  expect  in  our  country, 
where  one  decade  brings  from  all  quarters  of  the 
globe  an  immigration  equal  in  number  to  lo  per  cent, 
of  our  own  population,  each  group  having  its  own  lan- 
guage, traditions  and  habits?  Citizenship  can  make 
only  temporary  advancement  where  labor  is  being  de- 
graded. While  remuneration  has  something  to  do 
with  the  dignity  of  labor,  it  does  not  necessarily  make 
it  dignified.  Labor  itself  must  be  intelligent  and  self- 
respecting,  as  well  as  honored  and  respected,  if  it 
makes  permanent  advance.  The  supreme  purpose  of 
our  public  schools  should  be  the  development  of  char- 
acter. It  is  not  the  form  of  government,  but  the  char- 
acter of  its  people,  which  rules  the  destinies  of  a 
nation. 

More  than  95  per  cent,  of  our  immigrants  are  of  the 
manual  laboring  classes.  One  of  their  first  and  most 
important  steps  in  the  direction  of  citizenship  is  the 
attitude  they  assume  toward  manual  labor.  If,  like 
the  original  New  Englanders  and  the  early  immigrants 
coming  to  this  country,  they  look  upon  it  as  an  honor- 
able vocation,  a  stepping-stone  to  the  best  and  highest 
things  in  life,  their  self-respect,  respect  for  others, 
and  respect  for  property  rights  will  grow,  and  they 
will  soon  be  assimilated  and  rapidly  become  an  integral 
and  valuable  part  of  the  American  people.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  they,  like  a  large  percentage  of  the  Amer- 
ican youth,  become  imbued  with  the  thought  that 
manual  labor  is  without  honor,  their  self-respect  will 
be  lowered.  One  who  daily  does  that  which  he  thinks 
degrading,  no  odds  how  innocent  the  act,  will  in  time 


8  THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

become  degraded.  Good  citizenship,  without  a  high 
degree  of  self-respect,  is  impossible.  So  these  people 
may  become  an  element  of  weakness  and  a  menace 
to  our  free  institutions,  if  not  to  our  Government  it- 
self. How,  if  not  through  our  public  schools,  can  this 
mass,  with  small  conception  of  our  free  institutions, 
become  assimilated  and  Americanized?  We  cannot 
reasonably  expect  the  average  foreign-born  adult  ever 
to  have  an  adequate  conception  of  the  genius  and 
spirit  of  our  free  institutions.  It  is  only  in  child- 
hood that  character  may  be  molded  and  developed. 
What  we  make  of  the  young  immigrant,  after  he  is 
here,  is  vastly  more  important  than  what  he  is  when 
he  comes.  The  most  practical  way  to  reach  the  fa- 
thers and  mothers,  ignorant  of  our  language,  is 
through  the  children. 

No  broad-minded  citizen  would  abolish  the  public 
schools  or  minimize  education,  but  thinking  men  must 
feel  some  solicitude  as  to  the  character  of  the  education 
inculcated  in  these  schools.  Vicious  education  in 
Germany  had  drenched  the  world  with  blood.  That 
malignant  strength  was  waning  and  peace  seemed 
near,  when  Russian  ignorance,  in  its  weakness,  robbed 
us  of  a  powerful  ally.  Should  an  unsatisfactory  peace 
come,  who  shall  say  which  of  the  two  factors  —  mal- 
education  of  the  German  masses,  or  ignorance  of  the 
Russian  peasantry  —  was  the  one  that  shifted  the 
wavering  scale  of  justice  to  the  baleful  side?  Lack- 
ing either  of  these,  the  Central  Powers  must  have 
failed  ere  this. 

To  the  masses,  and  especially  to  our  foreign  born, 
liberty  is  a  vague  term,  "  meaning  many  things  to 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  9 

many  minds,"  from  license  to  its  true  import.  Mul- 
titudes, especially  of  the  foreign  born,  fail  to  real- 
ize that  "  liberty  is  the  result  of  law,  and  not 
the  absence  of  law."  This  misapprehension  makes 
for  discontent  and  unrest.  How  many  of  the  grade 
pupils  in  the  public  schools  and  undergraduates  of  our 
colleges  could  give  a  clear,  comprehensive  definition 
of  liberty?  Few,  when  they  first  learn  to  lisp  the 
decalogue,  comprehend  its  meaning;  but,  implanted 
in  the  childish  minds,  the  impression  of  these  divine 
commands  deepen  and  broaden  with  the  mental 
growth,  and  thus  unconsciously  have  become  potent, 
if  not  dominant,  factors  in  the  making  of  moral  char- 
acter throughout  civilization.  Why,  by  methods 
analogous,  should  not  our  pupils  in  the  public  schools 
be  early  taught  simple,  concise  and  comprehensive  defi- 
nitions of  liberty  and  other  principles  that  make  up  the 
foundation  of  democracy? 


CHAPTER  II 

It  may  be  asked,  "  What  do  all  these  things  have  to 
do  with  agriculture?"  They  have  very  much  to  do 
with  it  because,  as  a  class,  the  farmers  are  equal  in 
number  to  nearly  all  other  manual  laboring  classes 
combined.  Hence,  withdrawal  of  these  vast  numbers 
from  the  ranks  of  labor  or  the  lessening  of  their  effi- 
ciency, falls  more  heavily  upon  farming  interests,  than 
on  any  if  not  on  all  others,  combined.  Not  only  be- 
cause of  number,  but  because  of  their  isolation,  any- 
thing suggesting  that  manual  labor  may  not  be  highly 
honorable  is  among  them  more  far-reaching  in  its 
evil  effects.  As  the  employers  of  most  other  labor 
are  by  tariff  or  monopoly  protected  from  competition, 
they  are  able  to  add  to  the  cost  of  production,  not 
only  the  cost  of  labor,  but  a  percentage  of  profit  on 
that  added  cost.  The  farmer  has  no  such  redress. 
The  prices  of  his  commodities  —  except  at  present,  as 
a  war  measure  restricted  —  are  fixed  in  the  world's 
markets,  while  he  is  prohibited  from  buying  in  them; 
hence,  he  can  in  no  way  meet  this  competition.  It  has 
for  years  been  utterly  impossible  to  secure  more  than 
half  the  necessary  farm  labor  at  any  price.  Thus  the 
evils  of  inefficiency  and  over-pay  to  other  classes  of 
labor  fall  more  heavily  upon  the  farmers  than  on  any 
other  class,  especially  as  approximately  85  per  cent, 
of  all  the  farmer  buys  is  labor  in  some  form.     The 

10 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  II 

v?.lue  of  mineral  in  the  mine,  lumber  in  the  tree,  etc., 
IS  almost  an  infinitesimal  part  of  what  he  pays  for  the 
manufactured  product. 

When  war  was  declared  and  the  call  to  the  colors 
came,  the  farmers*  sons  and  the  best  class  of  farm 
laborers  were  among  the  first  to  respond  to  the  call. 
The  selective  draft  has  taken  many  more.  In  addition 
to  that,  the  high  wages  paid,  not  only  in  the  shipyards 
and  munition  plants  but  in  other  factories,  are  daily 
drawing  thousands  of  the  most  efficient  laborers  from 
the  already  scant  numbers  left  upon  the  farms. 

A  very  great  majority  of  obtainable  labor  for  the 
farms  are  inefficients  — "  down  and  outers  *' —  from 
the  city.  They  have  neither  experience  nor  interest 
in  farm  work,  and  intend  to  abandon  it  and  return  to 
town  at  the  first  opportunity  —  hence,  are  of  the  small- 
est possible  value.  Worst  of  all,  many  of  them  are 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  "  walking  delegate  " — 
that  their  services  must  not  be  made  too  valuable  to 
their  employers,  and  that  hours  and  output  must  be 
restricted.  To  farm  operations  this  sentiment  is  fatal. 
Exactly  to  fix  hours  of  labor  on  the  farm  is  not  prac- 
ticable, for  the  reason  that  because  of  rain,  snow,  cold 
and  the  resultant  soil  conditions,  approximately  one- 
third  of  the  days  of  the  year  field  work  is  impossible. 
Farm  work  must  be  done  when  it  can  be  done.  From 
the  first  sowing  in  the  spring  to  the  last  storing  of 
grain  in  the  fall,  delays  are  dangerous  —  often  disas- 
trous. For  even  one  man  to  insist  upon  restricted 
hours  at  critical  periods  means  disorganization  of  the 
whole  force,  and  often  entails  enormous  loss  to  the 
farmer.     As  shown  by  numerous  bulletins,  as  well  as 


12  THE   FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

experience,  it  is  found  impossible  to  secure  an  equiva- 
lent to  eight  working  hours  throughout  the  year,  not 
including  Sundays.  To  receive  pay  and  board  for  the 
hours  actually  worked  only  would  be  a  decided  dis- 
advantage to  the  farm  laborer,  and  few,  if  any,  of 
them  would  enter  into  a  contract  on  such  a  basis. 


CHAPTER  III 

To  bring  nearer  home  the  farmers'  competition  for 
labor,  I  would  say  that  in  commenting  on  the  decision 
rendered  about  the  first  of  April,  1918,  by  Judge  Alt- 
schuler  of  Chicago,  as  arbitrator  between  the  packers 
and  their  employees,  Mr.  Murphy,  manager  of  one  of 
the  two  largest  packing  houses  in  the  world,  is  quoted 
in  the  Omaha  Bee  of  April  3,  191 8,  as  saying  among 
other  things,  "  It  means  that  on  and  after  May  5, 
common  labor  employees,  working  ten  hours  a  day, 
will  receive  an  increase  of  52  per  cent,  as  compared 
with  what  they  were  getting  previous  to  January  14, 
which  was  at  the  rate  of  27^  cents  per  hour.  Instead 
of  receiving  $2.75  for  10  hours'  work,  they  will  re- 
ceive $4.20.  Women  employees  will  receive  a  59  per 
cent,  increase  down  to  37  per  cent,  to  those  who  were 
getting  60  cents  an  hour  for  a  lo-hour  day.  The  lat- 
ter will  be  paid  $8.33  for  a  lo-hour  day."  This  means 
that  by  working  ten  hours  a  day  during  the  entire 
year,  Sundays  excepted,  a  man  and  woman  will  earn 
$3821.89,  which,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere,  is  five 
times  the  gross  receipts  of  the  average  eighty  acres  of 
land  in  Nebraska  during  the  twenty-seven  years  end- 
ing December  31,  19 17,  and  four  times  the  gross  in- 
come from  the  average  eighty  acres  throughout  the 
country  during  the  eighteen  years  prior  to  the  passage 
of  the  Adamson  Law,  as  shown  by  reports  of  the  Fed- 

13 


14  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

eral  Department  of  Agriculture.  These  farm  incomes 
make  no  allowance  for  interest  on  money  invested  in 
either  land,  buildings  or  equipment,  which  amount  to 
an  average  of  $10,000  to  $15,000;  nor  an  allowance 
for  disease  and  accidents  to  live  stock,  nor  taxes  upon 
land.  No  one  man  and  one  woman  can  properly  till 
eighty  acres,  even  by  working  from  twelve  to  sixteen 
hours  per  day. 

Query:  Why  should  these  men  and  women  leave 
the  packing  plants,  and  go  to  the  farm  to  work  longer 
hours  for  one- fourth  of  the  pay?  Answer:  They 
will  not. 

Query :  Why  should  not  the  able-bodied,  intelligent 
young  men  and  women  leave  the  farm  and  go  to  the 
packing  plants  or  elsewhere  where  shorter  hours  will 
insure  300  to  400  per  cent,  greater  remuneration  ?  An- 
swer: They  are  going,  and,  because  of  vicious  labor 
and  marketing  conditions,  have  been  going  for  twenty 
years,  and  will  continue  to  go  until  the  handicaps  are 
removed  and  better  inducements  are  held  out  to  keep 
them  on  the  farm. 

A  preponderance  of  all  manual  laborers  of  this  coun- 
try are  foreign  bom  or  of  foreign  parentage.  A  very 
small  and  constantly  decreasing  percentage  of  the  orig- 
inal American  stock  is  engaged  in  agriculture.  As 
our  immigrants  have  neither  traditions  nor  sentiment 
binding  them  to  the  farm,  they  leave  it  with  less  re- 
luctance than  the  American.  For  this  reason,  the  exo- 
dus from  the  farms  is  rapidly  increasing,  and  will  con- 
tinue to  increase  so  long  as  existing  labor  and  market- 
ing conditions  obtain. 

Some  tell  us  that  it  is  the  glint  and  glamour  of  the 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  15 

city  which  take  the  boys  and  girls  from  the  farm. 
Not  so.  Since  our  first  parents  were  driven  from  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  men  have  been  driven,  not  lured, 
from  country  Hfe.  Remove  artificial  handicaps  from 
agriculture,  so  that  reasonable  profits,  modern  con- 
veniences and  comforts  are  possible  on  the  farms,  and 
they  will  be  filled  with  intelligent,  industrious  people, 
and  our  teeming  millions  fed  better  than  ever  before, 
and  this  at  a  price  not  prohibitive  to  the  most  common 
laborer. 
I  Why  should  Congress  be  so  solicitous  concerning  the 
wage  of  all  other  labor,  so  considerate  of  the  profits 
of  commercial  interests,  and  ignore  those  of  the 
farmer,  practically  assuming  that,  if  he  fails  to  accom- 
plish the  impossible,  it  will  be  because  he  lacks  patriot- 
ism? 

Had  there  been  an  adequate  number  of  farm  labor- 
ers available  even  when  war  was  declared,  or  had  it 
been  possible  to  have  left  the  meager  supply  then  there 
undisturbed,  the  tremendous  extra  exertion  now  being 
made  by  men,  women  and  children  upon  the  farms 
would  have  gone  a  long  way  toward  supplying  the  tre- 
mendously increased  demand  for  food  stufTs  brought 
about  by  war  conditions.  But  they  are  gone.  Their 
places  must  be  filled  if  this  increased  demand  for  food 
stuffs  is  met,  and  a  food  crisis  averted.  How  shall 
this  be  done  if  not  by  such  increase  in  price  of  farm 
products  as  will  enable  the  farmer  successfully  to  bid 
for  labor  in  the  open  market  ?  Two  ways  are  pointed 
out.  First:  That  organized  labor,  emulating  the 
farmers'  example,  shall,  during  the  war,  abandon  fixed 
hours  of  labor,  or  at  least  make  ten  hours  instead  of 


l6  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

eight  hours  the  basic  day's  work.  This  would  release 
one  in  five  of  their  number,  to  be  employed  in  agri- 
culture, or  to  take  the  place  of  those  less  skilled,  who 
would  in  turn  be  released  for  farm  labor.  Though 
far  from  adequate,  this  would  help.  With  the  un- 
precedented high  wages  now  being  paid  them,  this 
should  not  overtax  or  be  a  crucial  test  of  their  patriot- 
ism.    No  other  class  is  doing  so  little. 

The  other  avenue  of  relief  is  through  Chinese  labor. 
White  labor  is  unavailable,  as  man  power  is  already 
overtaxed  in  every  civilized  coimtry  on  the  globe. 
Agencies  on  the  Pacific  Coast  have  offered  immedi- 
ately to  furnish,  as  fast  as  ships  can  bring  them,  a 
half  million  of  Chinese  laborers,  to  be  followed,  if 
necessary,  by  millions  more.  These  laborers  would  at 
once  be  efficient  aid  in  our  sugar  beet  fields,  vegetable 
and  fruit  growing  sections,  as  well  as  in  the  dairy  in- 
dustries; and  shortly  would  become  effective  and  effi- 
cient help  on  the  average  farm.  Arguments  against 
the  importation  of  Chinese  labor  in  time  of  peace  lose 
force  and  should  not  apply  when  it  becomes  a  question 
as  to  whether  or  not  our  Allies  and  armies  shall  fail 
for  lack  of  food,  and  the  world's  liberty  be  lost  on  one 
hand,  or  employment  of  these  laborers  on  the  other. 

Those  in  high  authority  and  in  the  best  position  to 
know  are  not  predicting  an  early  termination  of  this 
awful  struggle,  and  if  the  present  battle  on  the  West 
Front  fails  to  result  in  decisive  victory  in  favor  of  the 
Allies,  the  war  is  likely  to  resolve  itself  into  one  of 
economic  endurance,  in  which  food  stuffs  are  an  all- 
important  factor.  The  American  farms  are  the  last 
resort.     If  they  fail,  our  cause  is  hopeless.     Without 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM      •         1 7 

added  man-power,  the  utmost  efforts  of  those  now  on 
the  farms  will  be  inadequate.  What  is  done,  should 
be  done  quickly. 

Both  France  and  England  are  using  Chinese  labor 
on  the  farms  with  satisfactory  and  astonishing  results. 
During  more  than  ten  years,  it  has  been  impossible  to 
induce  either  the  white  or  the  black  labor  to  do  the 
farm  work  necessary  to  produce  adequate,  wholesome 
food  for  all  our  people;  hence,  other  laborers  are  in- 
dispensable. The  chief  opposition  to  Chinese  labor 
comes  from  "  idlers  "  and  organized  labor.  Because 
of  its  insistence  on  shortened  hours,  reduced  output 
and  a  constantly  increasing  wage,  and  strikes  in  the 
presence  of  the  enemy — "industrial  treason" — it 
should  be  estopped  from  protest  against  getting  others 
to  do  the  absolutely  necessary  work  which  they  have 
failed  or  refuse  to  do.  That  mothers  and  babes,  as 
well  as  our  men  with  the  colors,  should  go  hungry  lest 
the  wage  scale  be  not  further  advanced,  or  that  days 
of  labor  be  increased  toward  a  basis  upon  which  farm- 
ers, as  well  as  business  men  and  salary  earners,  are  now 
working,  is  unthinkable.  To  attempt  to  "  conciliate 
labor  "  by  leaving  out  the  largest  class,  if  not  a  major- 
ity, of  all  our  manual  laborers,  is  not  making  for  in- 
dustrial peace  nor  national  prosperity.  One  China- 
man added  to  the  present  force  on  each  farm  would, 
at  the  end  of  the  second  year,  add  25  per  cent,  to  40 
per  cent,  to  the  present  output,  and  soon  increase  this 
to  i(X)  per  cent. 


CHAPTER  IV 

As  the  Adamson  Law  was,  at  the  same  time,  the 
greatest  stride  yet  taken  towards  Socialism,  and  the 
hardest  blow  yet  received  by  American  agriculture,  it 
may  not  be  out  of  place  to  consider  the  remuneration 
received  by  the  two  classes  of  manual  labor  —  organ- 
ized labor  in  the  industries,  and  unorganized  labor  on 
the  farms  —  just  prior  to  the  enactment  of  that  law. 

While  that  bill  was  pending  in  Congress,  the  wage 
scale  of  the  men  to  be  directly  affected  thereby  was 
published,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  never  contradicted. 
This  shows  that  the  very  lowest  paid  class  to  be  af- 
fected, the  passenger  brakeman,  received  an  annual 
wage  of  $967.  A  careful  analysis  of  the  reports  of 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  taking 
the  average  yield  and  the  average  market  price  —  both 
high  —  of  the  leading  cereals  during  the  preceding 
eighteen  years  —  usually  fruitful  —  shows  that  the 
gross  income  from  the  average  eighty  acres,  all  under 
cultivation,  allowing  nothing  for  waste  land,  was 
$936.80  or  $30.20  less  than  the  average  wage  of  the 
passenger  brakeman.  Yet  the  law  was  enacted,  enor- 
mously increasing  this  wage  scale,  which  has  recently 
been  again  increased  by  Federal  sanction. 

No  man  can  properly  till  eighty  acres  of  land.  The 
position  of  the  brakeman  requires  no  previous  prep- 
aration, no  physical  strength  nor  mental  ability  above 

18 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  1 9 

that  of  even  the  farm  laborer.  His  employer  must 
protect  him  against  accidental  injury.  He  has  no  capi- 
tal invested.  What  reason  has  the  young  farmer  for 
remaining  on  the  farm,  even  if  given  to  him,  waiving 
interest  on  his  investment  —  land,  equipment  and 
stock,  amounting  to  $10,000  to  $15,000  —  taking 
all  the  hazard  of  accidental  injury  to  self,  acci- 
dent and  disease  to  stock,  crop  failure,  etc., 
working  twelve  to  fifteen  hours  a  day,  instead 
of  taking  position  as  brakeman,  with  no  capi- 
tal, where  he  can  work  eight  hours  a  day  and  re- 
ceive more  money?  If  he  is  capable  of  managing  a 
farm,  he  is  capable  of  becoming  a  train  conductor  or 
locomotive  engineer,  the  wage  of  the  former  being 
more  than  double,  and  that  of  the  latter  more  than 
three  times,  than  that  of  the  gross  income  of  his  farm. 
The  reason,  if  any,  must  be  sentimental.  As  a  result, 
since  1900  more  than  a  million  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent, industrious  and  efficient  men  have  left  the  farms 
of  our  country.  Their  places,  or  part  of  these,  have 
been  taken  by  hired  men  —  mostly  drifters  from  cities 
—  and  renters  —  chiefly  those  who  have  failed  of  suc- 
cess in  other  localities  or  other  lines  of  endeavor  —  a 
vast  majority  of  whom  have  no  capital,  no  hope  or 
ambition  ever  to  own  the  land  they  till. 

No  other  facts  or  factors  have  bred  so  much  dis- 
content and  so  discouraged  the  farmers  as  the  con- 
stant yielding  by  our  Government  to  the  extravagant 
demands  of  organized  labor.  While  the  political  press 
is  approving  all  this  and  lauding  the  leaders  of  organ- 
ized labor  as  patriots,  it  has  neither  compliment  nor 
commendation  for  the  farmer  —  apparently  begrudg- 


20  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

ing  and  minimizing  possible  profits  to  him,  frequently 
calling  him  "Slacker,"  "Pro-German,"  "Alien  en- 
emy," etc. 

Is  it  strange,  under  such  labor  conditions,  such 
radical  difference  between  the  remuneration  of  organ- 
ized labor  of  the  factories,  shipyards,  etc.,  and  the  un- 
organized labor  on  the  farms,  coupled  with  authentic 
reports  of  the  almost  fabulous  profits  made  by  the 
packers  and  others  who  control  the  marketing  of  food 
stuffs,  that  farm  abandonment  is  so  general?  That 
we  needs  must  have  "  Meatless  and  Wheatless  Days  "  ? 
Now  that  the  Government  proposes  to  furnish  every 
employee  in  our  Civil  Service,  from  the  janitor  up, 
with  accident  insurance,  amounting  to  two-thirds  of 
the  annual  wage,  to  be  paid  during  the  life  of  any  de- 
pendent upon  him,  the  farm  laborers  are  practically 
the  only  class  not  thus  protected.  The  farmer  has  no 
funds  from  which  to  pay  this,  and  to  meet  the  added 
cost,  he  cannot  (as  the  manufacturer  and  other  em- 
ployers do)  add  to  the  price  of  his  commodities.  An 
accident  to  the  tramp  who  happens  to  be  cleaning  his 
stables  or  shoveling  his  potatoes  may  result  in  bank- 
ruptcy. A  radical  reduction  of  the  wage  scale  must 
be  made  or  greatly  increased  prices  paid  for  farm 
products,  thus  enabling  the  farmer  to  meet  this  com- 
petition, or  the  present  exodus  from  the  farms  will 
continue  with  ultimately  disastrous  consequences. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  the  farmer  has  a  home  and 
may  raise  a  part  of  his  food.  In  almost  any  town  or 
suburb,  a  house,  better  than  the  average  farm  house, 
can  be  rented  for  $12  to  $15  a  month,  together  with 
garden  space  larger  than  that  used  for  vegetables  on 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  21 

the  average  farm.  Shortened  hours  of  the  town  la- 
borer give  him  vastly  more  time  to  care  for  garden, 
poultry,  etc.,  than  the  average  farmer  can  spare. 

As  a  confirmation  of  my  suggestion  that  the  aver- 
age yield  and  price  of  cereals,  as  given  by  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  was  too  liberal,  I  am  in  receipt 
of  a  bulletin.  No.  i6o,  just  issued  by  the  Agricultural 
Experiment  Station  of  the  University  of  Nebraska. 
This  shows  the  average  yield  and  market  price  of  the 
three  leading  cereals  in  Nebraska  during  twenty-seven 
years  ending  December  31,  19 17.  These  figures  make 
the  average  annual  income  per  acre  of  these  three 
cereals  $9.80,  making  a  gross  income  from  eighty  acres 
$784,  instead  of  $936.80,  as  above  stated.  In  neither 
of  the  above  computations  was  the  annual  amount  of 
seed  required  taken  into  consideration.  In  wheat  and 
oats  and  other  small  grain  this  amounts  to  approxi- 
mately 10  per  cent,  of  the  total  yield.  The  apparently 
lower  income  from  Nebraska  acres  is  not  because  the 
soil,  climatic  conditions  and  husbandry  are  inferior  to 
those  of  other  States,  but  can  be  accounted  for  only 
because  of  a  more  careful  and  accurate  method  of  se- 
curing data  by  the  Nebraska  authorities.  The  state 
authorities,  having  facts  close  at  hand,  rely  more  upon 
facts  and  less  upon  estimates,  than  the  Federal  De- 
partment of  Agriculture. 

In  an  agricultural  country  like  ours,  a  republic  worth 
while  cannot  long  survive  an  impoverished  peasantry. 
Recent  events  in  Russia  must  remind  every  thinking 
man  that  it  is  quite  as  important  that  democracy  may 
be  made  safe  for  the  World,  as  that  "  The  world  be 
made  safe  for  democracy." 


22  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

The  great  body  of  manual  laborers  are  not  only 
loyal,  but  right-minded.  But  are  they  not  being  mis- 
guided by  bad  advisors,  who  are  leading  them  back- 
ward toward  primitive  and  obsolete  methods,  methods 
that  may  make  for  temporary  success,  but  ultimate 
failure?  "No  political  institution,  no  social  institu- 
tion, is  sacred  unless  founded  on  some  eternal  truth, 
and  all  human  institutions  must  change  with  the  in- 
creasing knowledge  of  mankind." 


CHAPTER  V 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  col- 
lectivism and  capitalism,  as  now  understood,  were 
brought  forth,  both  born  of  the  same  parents, —  the 
*'  Spinning  Jenny  "  and  the  Steam  Engine.  The  first 
view  of  these  great  benefactors  of  the  race  filled  the 
laborers  with  alarm  —  fear  that  increased  production 
would  rob  them  of  the  means  of  livelihood  —  and 
drove  them  into  a  frenzy  of  hate,  which  took  form  in 
the  destruction  of  labor-saving  machines  —  these  mute 
but  mighty  factors  sent  for  their  deliverance  from 
bondage  —  a  bondage  worse  than  that  of  the  colored 
slave,  then  on  our  own  soil.  So  insane  was  their  rage 
that  they  drove  these  machines  out  of  many  districts, 
and  laws  were  enacted,  making  the  destruction  of  such 
machines  a  penal  offense  punished  by  deportation. 
Other  bills  were  before  Parliament  seeking  to  make 
the  offense  punishable  by  death.  It  was  only  after 
their  blind  fury  was  past  that  they  were  able  to  realize 
and  accept  this  innovation  as  a  blessing,  that  the  first 
real  step  toward  the  emancipation  of  labor  was  taken. 
As  soon  as  these  conditions  obtained,  classes  more  for- 
tunate and  more  powerful  than  they  took  up  the  cause 
of  labor,  and  by  intelligent  cooperation  with  it,  secured 
real,  valuable  and  permanent  reforms,  raising  them 
from  slaves,  in  all  but  name,  to  free  men.     By  undue , 

restriction  of  hours,  restriction  of  output  and  elimina- 

23 


24  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

tion  of  merit  as  a  measure  of  remuneration,  is  labor 
not  fighting  the  same  phantom  as  when  it  destroyed 
labor-saving  machines  ? 

It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  many  of  the  middle 
and  higher  classes  shared  with  those  unfortunate  la- 
borers this  same  blind  fear  of  mechanical  innovations, 
just  as  some  educated  and  sentimental  people  at  pres- 
ent join  with  the  leaders  of  organized  labor  in  the  fear 
that  over-production  of  life's  comforts  and  necessities 
may  be  hurtful  to  those  who  labor. 

The  sentimentalists  of  that  period  rather  hindered 
than  helped  reform. 

Until  all  labor  controversies  shall  be  settled  on  fun- 
damental principles  of  right  —  the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number,  and  the  rights  of  all  those  who 
labor,  regardless  of  class,  be  taken  into  consideration 
our  country  will  be  full  of  unrest.  If  civilization  sur- 
vives, manual  labor  must  continue.  Manual  labor  has 
been  the  characteristic  of  all  civilizations,  and  its  effi- 
ciency and  skill  a  fair  index  to  their  worth.  Savagery 
reduces  manual  labor  to  the  minimum.  Where  soil 
and  climatic  conditions  make  only  the  smallest  effort 
necessary  to  secure  that  which  sustains  life,  we  find 
the  most  degraded  species  of  the  human  race.  With 
them,  hours  of  labor  reach  the  irreducible  minimum. 
The  output  is  restricted  to  the  individual's  daily  phys- 
ical needs.  The  measure  of  merit  is  not  applied;  brute 
force  takes  its  place.  Every  movement  toward  the  re- 
duction of  man's  necessities  and  comforts  runs  counter 
to  civilization,  arrests  the  development  of  the  race, 
and  is  a  menace  to  free  institutions.  Yet  this  spirit, 
fostered  by  those  having  smallest  claims  for  our  citi- 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  2$ 

zenship,  its  percentage  of  foreign  bom  and  unnat- 
uralized being  the  largest  of  any  class,  has  been  grow- 
ing, until  at  the  present  moment,  the  Nation  is  con- 
fronted by  conditions  fraught  with  gravest  dangers. 

In  a  recent  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Chan- 
cellor Bonar  Law  is  quoted  as  saying,  "  The  extent  of 
America's  cooperation  is  not  limited  by  transportation, 
but  rather  is  limited  only  by  the  extent  of  her  man- 
power. This  is  the  one  great  fact  of  the  war."  There 
is  a  shortage  of  man-power  throughout  the  civilized 
world,  and  while  the  great  mass  of  the  American  peo- 
ple are  giving  up  wealth,  comfort,  ease  —  yea,  their 
own  sons,  that  their  blood  may  be  offered  as  a  sacri- 
fice on  the  altar  of  liberty  —  at  the  dictates  of  organ- 
ized labor  Congress  is  considering  the  Anti-efficiency 
Amendment  to  the  Naval  Appropriation,  the  aim  and 
purpose  of  which  seems  to  be  to  prevent  any  possible 
stimulant  being  offered  to  increase  efficiency  on  the 
part  of  the  laborers  in  the  employ  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. It  is  alleged  that  although  it  has  been  dem- 
onstrated that  one  man  and  his  helpers  may  drive  over 
4,800  rivets  in  a  day,  the  arbitrary  ruling  of  organized 
labor  makes  little  more  than  25  per  cent,  of  this  a  day's 
work;  and  that  extra  bonuses  must  be  paid  for  all 
work  done  over  this  restricted  amount,  and  for  all  labor 
over  eight  hours  in  any  day. 

The  press  is  everywhere  justly  clamoring  for  pun- 
ishment, swift  and  severe,  for  the  I.  W.  W.'s.  Yet 
the  utmost  accomplished  by  their  malignant  work  is 
insignificant  as  compared  with  what  must  follow  as  a 
result  if  such  sentiment  dominates  labor  in  our  war 
industries.     For  at  this  critical  juncture  in  the  na- 


26  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

tion's  history,  each  delay  makes  it  possible  for  the  Hun 
to  multiply  a  thousandfold  the  destruction  the  I.  W. 
W/s  can  or  have  in  the  past  wrought. 

Enforced  reduction  of  output,  the  refusal  to  do  piece 
work,  and  an  effort  to  eliminate  merit,  have  been  more 
fruitful  of  unnecessary  and  destructive  labor  contro- 
versies than  the  question  of  wage.  If  organized  labor 
will  abandon  these  vicious  theories  —  theories  that 
run  counter  to  all  established  economic  principles  — 
labor  controversies  will  be  few;  for,  in  my  opinion, 
a  great  majority  of  the  people  of  this  country  will 
agree  with  me  in  this  proposition ;  viz. —  that  no  wage 
scale  can  be  so  high  as  to  be  hurtful  to  humanity  if 
that  scale  is  based  upon  a  measure  of  merit,  and  ap- 
plies to  all  those  who  labor,  even  if  only  to  those  who 
labor  with  their  hands.  But  when  any  class  of  labor 
attempts  to  take  the  burden  from  its  own  shoulders, 
and  by  shortening  hours,  restricting  output,  thus  elim- 
inating merit,  throws  this  increased  burden  upon  the 
shoulders  of  other  labor,  it  is  running  counter  to  the 
spirit  of  American  democracy  and  outrages  every  sense 
of  even-handed  justice. 

Our  civilization  is  built  upon  the  Christian  faith. 
The  basic  principle  of  Christianity  is  service  —  service 
to  one's  fellows  —  any  departure  from  that  basic  prin- 
ciple is  a  step  backward,  and  away  from  all  that  is 
highest  and  best  in  the  civilization  of  to-day. 


CHAPTER  VI 

I  HAVE  no  patience  with  those  who  assert  that  there 
is  a  natural  or  inherent  antagonism  between  capital 
and  labor.  For  more  than  a  century  after  the  land- 
ing of  the  Mayflower,  capital  and  labor  were,  in  New 
England,  in  more  intimate  contact  and  more  mutually 
helpful  than  at  any  time  in  the  history  of  the  race.  As 
a  result  of  these  two  forces,  New  England  developed, 
and  did  an  hundredfold  more  for  the  uplift  of  human- 
ity than  any  other  community  or  nation  of  its  size 
that  ever  existed.  Honest  labor  and  honestly  acquired 
capital  were  never  antagonistic.  It  was  only  when 
the  criminal  element  in  the  ranks  of  both  capital  and 
labor  acquired  undue  influence  that  labor  troubles  be- 
gan. Because  of  these  twin  evils,  American  agricul- 
ture is  well-nigh  paralyzed,  and  our  nation  is  facing  a 
food  crisis. 

If  patriotic  motives  and  impulses  in  this  hour  of  our 
greatest  national  peril  will  not  induce  organized  labor 
to  postpone  the  settlement  of  all  these  controversies 
until  after  the  war  —  prospects  of  tranquillity  and  the 
hope  for  renewed  advances  in  everything  which  makes 
for  a  higher  civilization,  after  victory  is  won,  are  not 
alluring.  At  the  very  hour,  when  on  the  West  Front, 
the  gigantic  forces  of  freedom  and  oppression  are  in 
a  death  struggle,  the  press  announces  that  35,000  fac- 
tory operators  in  New  England,  largely  engaged  on 

27 


28  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

government  war  material,  have  struck  and  quit  work 
for  an  increased  wage.  How  can  one  reconcile  this 
act  at  this  moment  with  a  high  degree  of  patriotism, 
for  which  the  unions  have  been  constantly  given  credit 
since  the  war  began  ? 

From  the  farmers'  standpoint,  the  loyalty  of  organ- 
ized labor  has  only  reached  the  effervescent  stage. 
There  is  no  distillate  of  the  true  spirit  of  patriotism. 
Patriotism  is  the  love  of  country.  The  universal 
measure  of  love,  whether  of  country  or  of  kin,  is  sac- 
rifice. Working  under  the  most  favorable  conditions, 
the  shortest  days,  and  for  the  highest  wage  ever  paid 
to  manual  labor  in  the  world's  history,  with  frequent 
strikes,  does  not,  in  the  opinion  of  the  farmers,  con- 
stitute sacrifice. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  COMMISSION  was  appointed  by  Hon.  Herbert  C. 
Hoover,  United  States  Food  Administrator,  to  investi- 
gate the  cost  of  hog  production  and  to  report  plans 
for  stimulating  that  industry.  On  October  2y,  19 17, 
the  commission  made  its  final  report,  covering  both  its 
findings  of  facts  and  its  recommendations. 

After  a  most  thorough  investigation,  covering  nearly 
seventy  years,  this  commission  found  that  it  required, 
under  ordinary  farm  conditions,  at  least  12  bushels  of 
No.  2  com  to  produce  100  pounds  of  live  hogs  —  that, 
to  secure  a  fair  profit,  a  farmer  must  receive  for  100 
pounds  of  live  hogs  a  price  equal  to  13.3  bushels  of 
No.  2  corn,  based  upon  the  average  price  of  corn  dur- 
ing the  twelve  months  preceding  sale ;  that  to  stimulate 
an  increase  of  15  per  cent,  of  production,  made  nec- 
essary by  war  conditions,  the  price  of  100  pounds  of 
live  hogs  should  be  equal  to  the  price  of  14.3  bushels 
of  No.  2  com;  recommending  that  prices  should  by 
the  Food  Administration  be  fixed  accordingly.  The 
findings  of  the  commission  were  neither  new  nor  sur- 
prising to  the  intelligent  farmers  or  stock-feeders ;  the 
experience  of  most  of  these  had  been  that  12  bushels 
of  corn  had  not,  as  a  rule,  been  quite  enough  to  pro- 
duce 100  pounds  of  live  hogs. 

However,  this  report  should  be  of  enormous  value 
in  convincing  the  consuming  public  that  the  high  cost 


30  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

of  living  is  not  because  of  any  undue  profits  made  by 
the  farmers,  since  November  i,  19 17,  when  J.  P.  Cot- 
ton, chief  of  the  Meat  Division  of  the  Food  Adminis- 
tration, assumed  supervision,  if  not  control,  of  the 
packing  industry  as  shown  by  Table  No.  i. 

Table  No.  i 
PRICE  OF  CORN  AND  HOGS,  OMAHA 

Price  Value  Profit  or  loss 

Year                  No.  2  12  bu.  Price    12  to  i  basis      Corn 

corn  No.  2  100  lbs.   bu.  per  cwt  equivalent 

perbu.  corn  live  hogs  Loss    Gain    bushels 
1913  — 

(Entire  year)  $  .5925  $  7-ii  $8.06    $          $.95        13.60 

1917  — 

Nov 2.084         25.00        17.33      7-^     '•'         8.33 

Dec    1.57  18.84        16.74      2.10     . . .        10.66 

1918  — 

Jan 1.85  22.20  16.125  6.07  ...    8.71 

Feb i.6s  19.80  i6.25'  3.55  ...    9.844 

Mar.    1.62^  19.50  16.62  2.88  . . .  10.23 

Apr 1.60K  19.26  16.88  2.38  . . .  10.51 

May    1.62  19.44  16.89  2.55  •  •  •  10.42 

June    1.604  19.24  16.38  2.86  . . .  10.20 

Average...  $1,701        $20.41      $16.65    %Z-1^     .-•  9.86 

The  reports  of  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture  show  that  on  September  i,  19 17,  the 
month  just  preceding  the  commission's  report,  there 
Were  on  the  farms  of  our  Country  8,038,000  less 
hogs  than  on  September  i,  1915,  and  5,427,000  less 
than  on  September  i,  19 16.  Adding  to  this  shortage 
15  per  cent. —  10,000,060  hogs  extra  —  made  neces- 
5?ary  by  war  conditions,  disclosed  a  deficiency  of 
15,000,000  to  18,000,000  of  hogs  for  our  needed 
supply. 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  3 1 

Confronting  these  alarming  conditions,  what  was 
done?  Were  the  recommendations  of  that  able  com- 
mission followed?  Not  at  all;  but  instead,  the  Chief 
of  the  Meat  Division  of  the  United  States  Food  Ad- 
ministration, on  receipt  of  it,  issued  a  bulletin,  saying 
among  other  things :  "  The  prices,  so  far  as  we  can 
affect  them,  will  not  go  below  a  minimum  of  $15.50 
per  cwt.  for  average  packers'  droves  on  the  Chicago 
market,  until  further  notice."  ..."  As  to  hogs  far- 
rowed next  spring,  we  will  try  to  stabilize  the  price, 
so  that  the  farmer  can  count  on  getting  for  each  100 
pounds  of  hogs  for  market,  thirteen  times  the  average 
cost  per  bushel  of  the  com  fed  into  the  hog."  Why, 
if  a  year  hence  farmers  should  receive  an  equivalent 
of  13  bushels  of  com  for  each  100  pounds  of  hogs 
ready  for  market,  should  he  be  compelled  to  accept  the 
equivalent  of  7J4  bushels  of  corn  at  the  then  present 
time?  And  especially,  as  at  that  time,  he  was  begin- 
ning the  harvest  of  the  smallest  crop  of  com  in  food 
value  in  ten  years,  if  ever? 

The  price  of  No.  2  corn  on  the  Chicago  market  at 
that  time  —  the  month  preceding  and  the  month  fol- 
lowing —  was  a  trifle  over  $2  per  bushel ;  the  12  bush- 
els necessary  to  produce  100  pounds  of  live  hogs, 
$24,  or  $9.50  more  than  the  price  suggested  for  live 
hogs. 

How  many  manufacturers  would  continue  to  make 
any  line  of  goods  in  which  the  raw  material  was  worth 
40  per  cent,  to  60  per  cent,  more  than  the  finished 
product?  None.  They  would  be  impelled,  for  self- 
preservation,  to  sell  the  raw  material.  Nevertheless, 
partly  through  patriotism,  but  chiefly  because  40  per 


32  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

cent,  of  their  com  was  too  soft  to  be  marketed  in  any 
other  way,  the  farmers  continued  to  feed  hogs ;  so  the 
evil  effects  were  not  immediately  felt,  but  will  be 
keenly  felt  when  too  late  to  apply  a  remedy. 

If  the  Meat  Division  of  the  Food  Administration 
had  no  authority  to  change  the  price  at  that  time,  by 
what  authority  did  it  expect  to  change  it  later?  But, 
as  the  bulletin  further  recites :  "  We  shall  establish 
a  rigid  control  of  the  packers " —  it  seems  to  be 
estopped  from  denying  authority.  The  commission 
recommended  that  these  prices  should  be  announced 
as  going  into  effect  February  i,  191 8,  for  the  reason 
that  by  so  doing  it  would  encourage  fall  breeding  and 
arrest  the  alarming  slaughter  of  brood  sows. 

The  result  of  the  above  was,  as  the  commission 
feared,  that  farmers  continued  to  rush  pigs  and  brood 
sows  to  market.  The  records  of  the  South  Omaha 
Stock  Yards  show  that  more  pigs  were  received  dur- 
ing the  month  of  November  than  during  any  previous 
November  in  the  history  of  the  yards.  At  the  same 
time,  the  average  weight  of  hogs  received  was  260 
pounds  —  the  heaviest  average  for  any  November  in 
seven  years.  These  two  facts  alone  (without  other 
evidence,  of  which  there  is  an  abundance)  tend  to 
prove  that  the  brood  animals  were  being  slaughtered 
by  thousands.  Allowing  for  the  light  average  weight 
of  pigs,  the  other  hogs  received  must  have  averaged 
approximately  300  pounds. 

From  Table  No.  i  it  will  be  seen  that  during  the 
year  19 13,  prior  to  the  original  declaration  of  war, 
there  was,  on  a  cost  basis  of  12  bushels  of  corn 
to  100  pounds  of  live  hogs,  a  profit  of  $.95  to  the 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  33 

farmer.  On  the  same  basis,  since  November  i,  191 7, 
there  has  been  a  constant  loss  averaging  over  20  per 
cent,  on  all  hogs  sold.  They  brought  that  much  less 
than  the  corn  fed  was  worth  on  the  market. 

During  thirty-one  years  prior  to  November  i,  191 7, 
when  Mr.  J.  P.  Cotton,  Head  of  the  Meat  Division 
of  the  Food  Administration,  assumed  control  of  the 
packing  industry,  there  was  but  one  year  in  which  the 
average  price  of  live  hogs  in  South  Omaha  was  lower 
than  the  ratio  of  10  to  i.  During  the  eight  months 
since  he  took  control,  as  will  be  seen  by  Table  No.  i, 
the  monthly  average  price  of  100  pounds  of  live  hogs 
has  been  equivalent  to  only  9.86  bushels  of  com. 

In  the  circular  above  referred  to,  Mr.  Cotton  further 
says,  "  We  have  had,  and  shall  have,  advice  of  a  board 
of  practical  hog  growers  and  experts."  ..."  That 
board  has  given  its  judgment  that  to  bring  the  stock 
of  hogs  back  to  normal  under  present  conditions,  the 
ratio  should  be  about  13  to  i."  (The  price  of  100 
pounds  of  live  hogs  equivalent  to  the  current  price  of 
13  bushels  of  No.  2  com).  .  .  .  "We  shall  establish 
rigid  control  of  the  packers."  Why,  with  this  "  rigid 
control  of  the  packers,"  should  the  price  ratio  of  live 
hogs  go  almost  at  once  to,  and  remain  at,  a  ratio  of  less 
than  10  to  I,  instead  of  13  to  i,  as  recommended  by 
the  commission  of  "  practical  hog  growers  and  ex- 
perts," and  which  commission  has  "  given  its  judg- 
ment that  to  bring  the  stock  of  hogs  back  to  normal 
under  present  conditions,  the  ratio  should  be  about  13 
to  I  "  ?  In  short,  why,  during  the  past  seven  months 
were  the  farmers  compelled  to  receive  $4.50  to  $5.50 
per  100  pounds  less  for  their  hogs  than  the  commission 


34  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

had  decided  they  should  receive  —  less  than  the  corn 
fed  them  was  worth  in  the  market  ? 

What  were  the  conditions  confronting  the  country 
at  date  the  report  and  circular  referred  to  were  issued  ? 
First:  A  corn  crop  that  promised  not  to  exceed  60 
per  cent,  of  normal  in  food  value.  Second :  A  h«)g 
supply  at  least  25  per  cent,  to  30  per  cent,  below  evi- 
dent needs.  Third:  A  proposed  augmentation  of 
our  fighting  forces  to  one  million  or  more,  and  an  in- 
evitable tremendously  increased  demand  for  food  by 
our  Allies.  Fourth :  A  record  of  extortionate  profits 
in  the  packing  industry  and  other  distributing  agencies 
of  food  stuffs.  In  view  of  the  above,  the  Department 
of  Agriculture,  and  the  Congressional  Committees  re- 
sponsible for  agricultural  legislation,  were  not  blame- 
less in  permitting  such  conditions  to  continue,  especially 
when  the  food  situation  was  so  critical.  This  simply 
demonstrates  what  meager  attention  is  paid  to  vital 
matters  pertaining  to  agriculture. 

So  far  as  I  know,  the  reports  of  every  other  com- 
mission created  by  Federal  authority  have  been  given 
the  widest  publicity,  and  have  been  seriously  consid- 
ered by  a  congressional  committee,  or  similar  high 
authority.  Among  all  my  acquaintances,  I  have  not 
been  able  to  find  more  than  three  or  four  who  had  seen 
a  copy  of  the  commission's  report  above  referred  to. 
In  response  to  requests,  both  the  offices  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  Agriculture  and  the  Food  Administration  at 
Washington  reported  they  had  none.  Why  not? 
So  far  as  I  know,  neither  Congress  nor  any  of  its 
committees  have  seriously  considered  or  acted  upon 
this  tremendously  important  report.     Why  not?     It 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  35 

concerns  the  largest  and  most  basic  of  all  our  in- 
dustries, and  directly  affects  practically  every  farmer 
north  of  the  Mason-Dixon  line.  Every  one  of  the 
millions  of  consumers  has  a  right  to  know  whether 
the  exorbitant  price  paid  for  meat  goes  to  stimulate 
the  industry,  and  thus  by  increasing  production  re- 
duces the  price;  or  if  it  goes  to  swell  the  already  over- 
filled pockets  of  the  profiteers,  discouraging  production 
and  increasing  prices.  Would  not  the  feeling  of  an- 
tipathy of  the  consumer,  paying  what  he  thinks  ex- 
tortionate prices  for  meat,  toward  the  farmers  be  less 
if  he  knew  that  they  have  received  no  profit  on  hog 
feeding  during  the  war  —  that  is,  the  corn  fed  them 
was  worth  more  than  the  hog  brought? 

As  the  circular  sent  out  by  the  Head  of  the  Meat 
Division  of  the  Food  Administration  was  dated  No- 
vember 3,  191 7  —  about  six  days  later  than  the  date 
of  the  commission's  report,  October  27,  19 17, —  what 
time  was  there  for  others  than  himself  (and  that  very 
scant)  seriously  to  consider  that  report;  and  who  is 
the  Head  of  the  Meat  Division  of  the  Food  Admin- 
istration, and  what  his  experience  to  qualify  him  so 
summarily  to  pass  upon  a  report  that  required  weeks, 
if  not  months,  in  its  preparation  —  a  report  whose 
subject  directly  affects,  either  as  a  consumer  or  a 
producer,  more  than  98  per  cent,  of  the  American 
people  ?  Would  either  organized  capital,  or  organized 
labor,  submit  in  silence  to  such  treatment  of  a  report 
made  by  a  Federal  Commission  directly  affecting  its 
interests  ?     Have  they  ever  been  put  to  the  test  ? 

**  Porkless  Days "  should  not  have  been  discon- 
tinued.    The  enforced  slaughter  of  brood  animals  and 


36  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM      ' 

pigs  foreshadows  a  shortage  of  hog  supply.  A 
greatly  increased  demand  by  both  our  armies  and  our 
Allies  during  the  coming  year  is  sure. 

The  above,  or  anything  I  may  say,  is  not  intended 
as  a  criticism  of  Mr.  Hoover,  the  able  Head  of  the 
Food  Administration,  who  has  brought  to  that  monu- 
mental task  superb  business  ability,  and  the  highest 
degree  of  patriotism;  but  instead,  to  challenge  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  both  those  in  and  out  of  Con- 
gress, who  should  have  aided  and  cooperated  with 
him,  because  of  inefficiency,  ignorance  or  indifference, 
failed  to  give  him  such  support  as  would  insure  the 
highest  degree  of  success  in  this  all-important  Depart- 
ment of  our  war  activities. 

As  another  example  of  this  inefficient  aid,  I  would 
say  that  in  January,  1918,  a  letter  was  addressed  to 
the  Food  Administration,  saying  that  during  the  last 
years  of  the  Civil  War,  sorghum,  raised  by  themselves, 
constituted  90  per  cent,  of  the  sweets  consumed  by 
the  farmers  even  as  far  north  as  Southern  Wisconsin ; 
not  only  did  it  supply  them,  but  any  surplus  always 
found  ready  sale  in  the  cities  and  towns;  suggesting 
that  the  Food  Department,  in  a  circular,  urge  the 
farmers  to  resume  this  practice;  with  brief  sugges- 
tions as  to  its  planting,  culture,  care,  etc. ;  to  the  end 
that  the  sugar  situation,  then  critical,  might  be  re- 
lieved. In  response  to  this  letter,  one  was  received 
written  by  a  subordinate  in  the  office  of  the  Food  Ad- 
ministrator, saying  among  other  things,  that  "  the 
question  of  sorghum  and  molasses  production  had 
been  frequently  presented  to  our  attention  "...  but 
that  the  Department  "  Have  not  felt  justified  in  con- 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  37 

stituting  a  National  '  campaign '  to  stimulate  its  pro- 
duction, our  reasons  being  that  from  reliable  statistics, 
it  is  apparent  at  this  time  that  the  sugar  supply  for 
the  United  States  will  be  practically  normal  for  the 
coming  year,"  etc. 

Supposing  the  sugar  supply  should  become  normal, 
what  of  it?  What  harm  if  our  farmers  should  begin 
this  practice  of  thrift  and  economy,  and  produce  their 
own  sweets  ?  I  fail  to  see  how  such  a  situation  could 
be  harmful  to  any  one  unless  it  be  to  the  sugar  trust. 
Half  the  year  is  gone,  and  the  sugar  situation  grows 
more  critical. 

In  passing,  I  would  say  this  "  campaigning "  the 
farmers  is  an  idea  that  came  into  practice  only  after 
political  and  commercial  interests  had  acquired  undue 
influence,  if  not  control,  of  the  State  Agricultural 
Schools,  as  well  as  the  Department  of  Agriculture. 
Why  should  suggestions  from  callow  youths  and 
broken-down  politicians  have  more  influence  with  the 
farmers  than  the  advice  of  Mr.  Hoover,  whom  they  all 
respect  ? 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Any  one  familiar  with  the  pork  industry  knows  that 
the  average  hog  seldom  acquires  a  weight  of  260 
pounds  before  it  is  a  year  old,  and  also  that  it  is  quite 
as  seldom  that  any,  except  brood  animals,  are  allowed 
to  attain  that  age  on  the  farm.  Every  brood  sow 
slaughtered  during  the  ninety  days  following  this  re- 
port means  a  shortage  of  eight  to  ten  marketable  hogs 
during  the  next  eighteen  months. 

In  the  past,  every  time  the  price  of  100  pounds  of 
live  hogs  approximated  the  value  of  13.3  bushels  of 
com,  this  condition  has  been  followed  by  a  marked 
increase  in  both  quantity  and  quality  of  hogs  mar- 
keted. And  every  time  it  has  gone  appreciably  below 
that,  there  has  been  a  corresponding  decline  in  both. 
During  the  year  19 10,  reasonable  profits  prevailed, 
the  price  of  100  pounds  of  live  hogs  approximating 
that  of  the  average  price  of  13.3  bushels  of  No.  2 
com.  The  effect  of  this  fair  profit  was  reflected  in 
the  increased  number  of  hogs  marketed  the  following 
year —  191 1.  In  five  of  the  leading  packing  centers, 
this  increase  amounted  to  4,516,000  head  —  35  per 
cent. —  or  approximately  a  ten  million  increase  for 
the  entire  country.  During  191 1,  the  price  of  hogs 
dropped  below  the  13.3  ratio,  resulting  in  a  reduction 
of  512,000  in  the  number  of  hogs  received  during  191 2 

38 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  39 

at  these  same  five  packing  centers,  and  this  too  in 
spite  of  a  marked  increase  in  price  during  19 12. 

The  influence  of  this  ratio  of  price  to  cost  may  be 
traced  in  the  markets  of  this  country  for  at  least  sev- 
enty years.  On  the  first  day  of  January,  1861,  the 
price  of  100  pounds  of  Hve  hogs  was  equivalent  to 
the  price  of  17.7  bushels  of  corn.  Among  the  first 
effects  of  the  Civil  War  was  the  cutting  off  of  our 
chief  pork  markets  —  the  Southern  States.  This  re- 
sulted first  in  throwing  the  price  of  hogs  far  below 
the  proper  ratio  of  13.3  bushels  of  com  to  100  pounds 
of  hogs.  Then,  as  during  the  three  months  following 
November  i,  19 17,  pigs  and  brood  animals  were 
rushed  to  market,  and  the  stock  of  hogs  reduced  on 
every  fann.  A  meat  famine  ensued,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  100  pounds  of  live  hogs  sold,  not  for  the 
equivalent  of  13.3  bushels  of  com,  but  for  the  equiva- 
lent of  the  value  of  26.6  bushels  of  com,  or  equal  to 
$49.50  per  hundred  weight  at  present  price  of  corn. 
Such  a  meat  famine  now  would  be  disastrous  to  our 
armies  and  endanger  our  sacred  cause.  Like  effects 
from  similar  causes  might  be  noted  in  wheat  and  other 
food  products. 

Can  we  afford  to  take  such  tremendous  hazards? 
Why  should  we  not  offer  every  possible  stimulant  for 
an  increase  of  this  indispensable  food? 

As  in  all  other  war  necessities,  the  paramount  ques- 
tion should  not  be  what  food  may  cost,  but  can  and 
will  it  be  produced  in  sufficient  quantities?  I  approve 
every  step  taken  toward  conservation  of  food;  but  we 
can  neither  conserve,  nor  can  our  country  comman- 
deer, for  our  armies,  grain  from  fields  that  are  not 


40  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM 

tilled,  nor  meat  animals  from  empty  pastures.  In- 
creased food  production  must  be  stimulated.  Con- 
servation alone  can  not  attain  the  desired  end. 

To  those  who  think  a  food  crisis  an  impossibility, 
I  would  say  that  based  upon  the  Government  and  other 
estimates  there  was  early  in  191 8  a  general  belief  that 
a  vast  amount  of  wheat  remained  in  the  farmers* 
hands,  and  a  feeling  that  they  should  be  compelled 
to  disgorge.  Protests  were  particularly  vehement 
concerning  the  Nebraska  farmers  until  in  April,  19 18, 
when  an  invoice  was  made  of  the  Nebraska  farmers' 
granaries.  As  a  result,  approximately  400,000  bush- 
els of  wheat  were  found.  Quite  a  bit  of  wheat,  but 
not  quite  enough  to  feed  her  civil  population  for  three 
weeks  —  about  one-quarter  enough  to  re-seed  her 
fields.  With  this  condition  in  the  second  wheat  pro- 
ducing State  in  the  Union,  where  for  twenty  years 
wheat  has  of  all  cereals  been  the  most  profitable,  what 
must  be  the  condition  in  other  States  where  this  crop 
has  been  of  little  or  no  profit?  An  invoice  of  the  corn 
cribs  of  the  country  would,  in  my  opinion,  result  in 
a  still  greater  surprise.  Our  armies  and  Allies  can- 
not subsist  on  exaggerated  estimates  and  rose-colored 
crop  predictions. 


CHAPTER  IX 

An  analysis  of  beef  production  discloses  similai 
conditions  to  those  of  pork,  except  perhaps  in  those 
areas  in  the  West  and  Southwest,  where  cattle  may 
be  grazed  the  entire  year  on  free  range  or  very  cheap 
land.  Under  such  conditions,  the  labor  element  is  re- 
duced to  the  minimum,  and  the  expense  of  housing 
and  machinery  is  nominal.  These  areas  should  be  de- 
voted exclusively  to  the  breeding  and  preparing  of 
cattle  for  the  feed  yards  —  the  cattle  to  be  fattened 
on  the  farms  in  the  corn  growing  section.  This  plan 
would  have  been  followed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  had 
not  the  meat  industry  been  monopolized,  which  elimi- 
nated profits  in  the  feeding  business. 

The  Food  Administration  should  at  once  appoint 
a  competent  commission  thoroughly  to  classify  all  cat- 
tle. To  the  end,  first,  that  the  farmer  may  know 
in  just  what  class  any  animal  he  has  belongs  —  hence, 
what  price  it  should  bring.  At  present,  he  can  hardly 
make  a  rational  guess. 

In  an  investigation  made,  when  the  grading  bill 
was  before  Congress,  it  was  alleged  that  the  elevators 
were  buying  millions  of  bushels  of  grain  as  of  one 
grade,  and  shipping  it  out  and  selling  the  same  on  a 
much  higher  grade,  thus  deceiving  and  defrauding 
the  farmers,  and  misleading  and  imposing  upon  the 
consumers.     The  packers  seem  to  have  been  following 

41 


42  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

a  similar  plan  in  the  meat  industry.  For  a  very  few 
choice  cattle,  a  high  price  is  frequently  paid.  This 
is  given  the  widest  publicity,  and  in  every  shop  it  is 
given  as  the  reason  for  the  high  price  of  beef  to 
people  who  never  tasted  this  high  class  of  beef  —  the 
meats  sold  them  generally  coming  from  a  class  of  cat- 
tle for  which  the  farmers  received  little  or  no  more 
than  one-half  the  price  quoted. 

The  consuming  public,  as  well  as  the  farmer,  from 
daily  market  quotations,  should  know  the  number  and 
percentage  of  each  class  of  animals  sold,  and  the  price 
paid  for  same  at  the  stock  yards;  that  the  one  may 
know  what  his  stock  should  bring,  and  the  other  what 
his  meat  should  cost.  These  grades  being  established, 
the  Government,  during  the  war  at  least,  should  pro- 
hibit the  slaughter  of  certain  classes  of  immature  and 
un fattened  animals.  The  result  of  this  would  at  first 
work  apparent  hardship.  Consumers  might,  for  a 
time,  have  to  pay  higher  prices,  but  for  a  better  class 
of  meat;  the  farmer,  obliged  to  sell  non-slaughterable 
cattle,  probably  would  find  a  poorer  market.  But 
these  conditions  would  only  be  temporary.  The  stim- 
ulus given  to  the  feeders  would  rapidly  increase  the 
amount  of  wholesome  beef,  and  that  in  turn  would 
stimulate  the  prices  of  young  and  undeveloped  ani- 
mals. The  Administration  being  able  to  detect  and 
eliminate  vicious  practices  in  the  trade,  our  farmers 
would  soon  be  producing  an  abundance  of  meat  to  be 
sold  on  the  block  at  lower  prices,  still  leaving  them  a 
fair  profit,  instead  of  sustaining  heavy  losses,  as  in 
recent  years.  From  the  standpoint  of  production, 
meat  must  always  be  an  expensive  food,  as  compared 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  43 

with  cereals.  This  is  obvious,  from  the  greater 
amount  of  work,  cost  of  housing  and  risk  of  loss  from 
disease  and  accident. 

Our  country  cannot,  however,  afford  to  discourage 
meat  as  a  diet,  if  we  expect  the  American  people  to 
maintain  their  present  virility.  In  every  nation, 
where  soil  impoverishment  has  rendered  meat  produc- 
tion impossible,  its  people  have  become  physically 
dwarfed,  and  their  mentality  sluggish, —  as  in  India, 
China,  etc. 


CHAPTER  X 

Attempted  legislation  for  the  alleged  benefit  of 
agriculture,  or  to  assist  the  farmer,  has  been  very  lit- 
tle —  the  good  results  less  —  the  "  Betterment  of 
Agriculture  "  almost  invariably  being  made  secondary 
and  subservient  to  commercial  or  political  interests. 
In  most  instances,  these  bills  were  not  primarily  for 
the  "  Betterment  of  Agriculture,"  but  only  because  of 
the  influence  the  name  **  farmer  "  might  have  in  secur- 
ing the  enactment  of  laws,  was  agriculture  connected 
with  them  at  all. 

By  the  much  lauded  "  Homestead  Act,"  Congress 
changed  a  national  liability  to  a  national  asset.  Most 
of  the  lands  available  under  the  Act  were  beyond  the 
Missouri  River,  where  vast  sums  were  annually  re- 
quired to  protect  traffic  and  mail  routes  from  the  In- 
dians. The  homesteaders  replaced  the  soldiers,  and 
under  revenue  and  tariff  laws  at  once  began  to  pay 
taxes.  Incidentally  the  Homestead  Law  removed  all 
competition  from  the  Railroad  Land  Grant  lands. 
The  two  bills  were  before  Congress  at  the  same  time. 
If  one  doubts  this  inference,  or  thinks  it  far-fetched, 
he  should  read  the  Act  of  Congress  amending  the 
Homestead  Act  passed  in  1879,  just  as  the  influx  of 
homesteaders  into  this  section  began.  This  Act  de- 
prived the  homesteader  of  his  right  to  claim  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  acres  of  land  as  provided  by  the  orig- 

44 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  45 

inal  Act,  except  to  those  lands  outside  of  the  twenty- 
mile  strip  —  ten  miles  along  each  side  of  the  railroad 
bed.  If  inside  that  strip,  it  was  reduced  to  eighty 
acres.  The  Railroad  Land  Grant  conveyed  to  the 
railroads  only  the  alternate,  or  odd  numbered,  sec- 
tions within  ten  miles  of  the  right  of  way.  The  even 
numbered  sections  and  all  other  agricultural  lands 
were  withdrawn  from  sale  and  retained  by  the  Gov- 
ernment for  homesteads  only.  Hence,  the  Govern- 
ment had  estopped  itself  from  reaping  any  pecuniary 
benefits  from  the  advance  selling  price  of  these  lands. 
On  no  theory  of  the  *'  Betterment  of  Agriculture  " 
can  this  amendment  be  justified. 

Then,  as  now,  the  intelligent  farmer  knew  that, 
though  he  might  exist  upon  eighty  acres,  he  could 
never  make  a  home  suitable  for  an  American  citizen, 
and  rear  his  family  on  less  than  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres.  This  is  obvious,  as  these  lands  are  fifteen  to 
eighteen  hundred  miles  from  consuming  centers  or 
tide  water,  where  the  prices  of  farm  products  are 
fixed.  Hence,  only  by  producing  large  volumes  to  be 
sold  on  small  margins  of  profit  could  he  or  his  suc- 
cessors hope  to  acquire  a  competency  or  to  maintain 
a  home.  The  homesteader  was  thus  driven  beyond 
the  ten-mile  limit  to  exercise  his  right  to  one  hundred 
and  sixty  acres  of  land.  Except  to  benefit  the  Land 
Grant  landowners,  why  should  our  Government  have 
not  only  permitted,  but  encouraged,  people  to  make 
these  early  settlements  as  compact  and  as  near  to  rail- 
roads as  possible,  where  the  expense  and  trouble  of 
marketing  would  be  reduced  to  the  minimum,  and 
where  schools  and  churches  could  be  more  readily 


46  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

and  inexpensively  established  and  maintained?  Few, 
if  any,  phases  of  pioneer  life  in  the  West  were  more 
pathetic  than  those  brought  about  by  this  Act  of  1879. 
Because  of  it,  the  early  homesteader,  when  in  need  of 
medical  aid,  food,  fuel,  etc.,  or  when  he  had  produce 
to  market,  was  forced  to  drive  through  rain,  snow, 
heat  and  cold,  twenty  miles  over  a  wilderness  with  no 
roads,  save  trails  leading  through  canyons,  along 
bluffs,  across  streams,  frequently  unbridged.  If  not 
for  the  purpose  of  enhancing  the  value  and  expediting 
the  sale  of  the  Land  Grant  lands,  why  was  this  law 
enacted?  As  to  the  value  of  these  lands,  this  was 
measured  by  the  price  of  land  scrip,  then  a  drug  on 
the  market,  at  from  forty  to  sixty  cents  an  acre  — 
$64  to  $96  per  homestead. 

On  the  other  hand,  labor  (organized)  for  more 
than  two  decades,  has  been  the  most  conspicuous  sub- 
ject before  Congress.  Most  of  this  legislation  has 
been  detrimental  to  agriculture.  It  has  increased  the 
wage,  raised  the  tariff,  adding  cost  to  every  manufac- 
tured article  purchased,  whether  domestic  or  imported. 
It  prevented  the  farmers  or  farming  community  from 
offering  any  encouragement  to  the  right  sort  of  im- 
migrant. Had  our  present  Immigration  Law  been  in 
force  when  the  Railroad  Land  Grant  lands  were  placed 
on  the  market,  one-half  of  the  transcontinental  lines 
would  not  have  been  built,  and  Kansas,  Nebraska,  the 
Dakotas  and  Wyoming  would  have  been  largely  a 
wilderness,  still  occupied  by  the  buffalo  and  Indians. 
These  railway  companies  placed  before  the  best  rural 
peoples  of  Europe  what  America  had  to  offer  to  the 
industrious  people  of  the  world,  no  odds  how  poor. 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  47 

holding  out  as  an  inducement  to  come,  low  passenger 
rates,  free  transportation  of  household  goods,  etc.,  etc. 
They  came  in  thousands,  and  out  of  these  immigrants 
have  been  built  some  of  the  most  prosperous,  loyal 
cities  and  farming  communities  of  the  West. 

But  for  vicious  changes  in  our  immigration  laws, 
the  best  States  in  the  Com  Belt  would  not  have  been 
losing  their  rural  population  during  the  last  two  dec- 
ades, nor  the  annual  yield  per  acre  of  cereals  on  our 
comparatively  new  lands  would  not  have  been  con- 
stantly growing  less,  while  the  fields, —  soil-worn  for 
a  thousand  years, —  in  France,  Germany  and  other 
European  countries,  were  increasing  their  yields,  and 
our  laboring  masses  would  have  been  better  fed  and  at 
lower  prices. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Passing  many  other  legislative  acts,  we  come  to 
that  of  establishing  the  Federal  Land  Banks,  the  al- 
leged purpose  of  which  is  also  the  "  Betterment  of 
Agriculture." 

When  the  question  of  establishing  a  new  national 
banking  system  was  before  Congress,  the  best  bankers 
throughout  the  country  were  taken  into  the  councils, 
as  well  as  into  the  confidence,  of  our  law-makers. 
Congressional  committees  seemed  always  glad  to  re- 
ceive suggestions,  called  in  bankers  of  experience, 
great  and  small,  from  all  quarters  of  the  country. 
The  counsel  of  these  practical  business  men  of  expe- 
rience in  that  particular  line  did  more  to  bring  about 
a  better  banking  system  —  one  which  seems  to  re- 
spond to  every  emergency  —  than  any  Congressional 
Committee,  without  such  efficient  aid,  could  have  evier 
secured.  When  the  system  was  established  from 
among  these  bankers,  and  following  their  counsel,  and 
in  keeping  with  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  all  bank- 
ers, men  were  selected  to  organize,  supervise  and  con- 
trol it. 

In  the  creation  of  the  Federal  Land  Bank  system, 
none  of  these  steps  were  followed  to  any  perceptible 
extent.  I  have  never  heard  of  a  man  of  high  stand- 
ing, large  and  long  experience  in  the  farm  mortgage 
business,   who  was  called  before  the  Congressional 

48 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  49 

Committee,  or  summoned  to  hearings  held  throughout 
the  country  ostensibly  to  gather  information  as  to  its 
desirability  or  method  of  operation.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  men  so  called  seemed  to  be  selected  from 
among  those  most  likely  to  favor  the  scheme,  usually 
job  hunting  pohticians,  land  boomers,  or  impecunious 
farmers  or  renters,  who  desired  greater  credit  for 
themselves.  Nor,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  v^ere  the  men 
chosen  to  organize  and  control  these  institutions  se- 
lected from  men  of  large  experience  and  responsibil- 
ity in  the  farm  mortgage  business.  When  the  several 
Federal  Land  Banks  were  organized,  they  were  not 
to  cooperate,  but  to  compete,  with  men  and  concerns 
already  engaged  in  the  legitimate  farm  mortgage  busi- 
ness. The  first  bid  for  popularity  was  that  they  would 
loan  more  money  on  the  same  security  than  the  es- 
tablished mortgage  agencies  and  would  loan  to  a  class 
of  people  whose  credit  was  not  satisfactory  to  those 
established  institutions.  Who  can  conceive  of  the 
chaotic  conditions  of  our  national  finances  at  this 
moment,  had  the  new  banking  system  been  so  organ- 
ized, established  and  conducted,  that  it  is  not  in  coop- 
eration, but  in  competition,  with  the  established  banks, 
holding  out  as  an  attractive  feature  that  they  would 
loan  more  money  on  the  same  basis  of  security  than 
the  old  banks  had  found  safe,  and  to  a  class  of  people 
who  had  not  earned  a  credit  with  the  older  banks? 
But  that  is  just  what  the  Federal  Land  Banks  did. 

Before,  during  and  ever  since  the  farm  mortgage 
boom  of  thirty  years  ago,  the  farm  loans  were  based 
and  restricted  to  one-third  of  the  total  value  of  the 
land  and  buildings.     The  Federal  institutions  prom- 


50  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

ised  to  loan  50  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  lands,  and 
in  addition  20  per  cent,  of  the  existing  or  proposed 
improvements.  These  promises  as  to  liberal  amounts 
have  been  generously  kept. 

During  the  farm  mortgage  boom  of  thirty  to  thirty- 
five  years  ago,  able  men  with  abundance  of  capital, 
high  credit  and  years  of  business  experience  in  other 
lines,  organized  farm  loaning  concerns,  such  as  the 
Lombard  Investment  Company,  the  Equitable  Trust 
Company,  the  Jarvis-Conkling  Company,  and  a  mul- 
titude of  others.  These  had  among  their  officers  and 
directorates  bankers  and  merchants  of  the  highest  busi- 
ness standing,  and  an  abundance  of  capital  and  credit. 
Practically  every  one  of  these  companies  have  failed 
or  gone  out  of  business  —  the  few  that  survived  were 
scarcely  sufficient  for  "  the  exception  which  proves 
the  rule."  These  monumental  failures  were  brought 
about  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  because  men  in  whose 
hands  the  management  of  these  concerns  fell  were 
without  experience  in  the  farm  mortgage  business,  and 
were  ignorant  of  those  fundamental  facts  and  condi- 
tions upon  which  farmers'  credit  should  be  based. 
This  is  proven  by  the  fact  that  scores  of  individuals 
and  corporations  then  in  the  farm  mortgage  business 
passed  through  the  panic  of  1893,  ^^^  depression  and 
the  delirium  of  1896,  with  practically  no  losses;  and 
before  the  depression  following  that  panic  had  entirely 
passed  away,  resumed  the  farm  mortgage  business, 
and  have  ever  since  continued  with  increasing  vigor 
and  success.  Among  these  might  be  named  Pearson 
&  Taft,  of  Chicago;  Burnham,  Trevitt  &  Mattis,  of 
Illinois;  Anthony  Brothers,  of  Peoria,  Illinois;  R.  E. 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  5 1 

Moore,  of  Lincoln,  Nebraska;  Iowa  Loan  &  Trust 
Company,  of  Des  Moines,  Iowa;  Mutual  Benefit  Life 
Insurance  Company,  of  Newark,  New  Jersey;  the 
Connecticut  General;  Connecticut  Mutual;  and  ^tna 
Life  Insurance  Companies,  of  Hartford,  Connecticut, 
and  scores  of  other  firms,  individuals  and  corpora- 
tions. 

Of  the  ultimate  of  this  government  experiment  in 
the  farm  mortgage  business,  I  express  no  opinion. 
However,  its  present  stage  of  development  seems  to 
have  disclosed  two  facts.  First :  As  an  intermediary 
between  borrower  and  lender,  it  is  the  most  expensive 
that  ever  existed  in  this  country.  Second :  That  the 
public  at  large  is  not  inclined  to  support  it  by  the  pur- 
chase of  its  bonds  to  the  extent  it  was  anticipated,  so 
it  seems  to  have  become  necessary  for  Congress  to 
appropriate  $200,000,000  to  be  invested  in  these  bonds 
during  the  next  two  years.  As  our  Government  was 
at  that  time  borrowing  money  at  from  three  and  one- 
half  to  four  per  cent,  interest,  and  this  is  now  being 
loaned  to  the  farmers  at  five  and  one-half  per  cent,  in- 
terest, it  is  not  difficult  to  figure  out  the  cost  of  the 
governmental  machinery  in  making  the  transfer  of 
funds  to  borrower  from  lender.  In  addition  to  this 
tremendous  margin  between  the  rate  received  by  the 
lender  and  that  paid  by  the  borrower  —  one  and  one- 
half  per  cent,  to  two  per  cent,  per  annum  —  in  the 
beginning,  the  Government  subscribed  approximately 
$9,000,000;  that  is,  $750,000  to  the  capital  stock  of 
each  of  the  twelve  Banks,  upon  which  no  interest  is 
to  be  received ;  and  also  assumed  the  payment  of  cer- 
tain salaries  and  other  expenses.     If  our  farmers  were 


52  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

really  lacking  in  credit,  which  they  were  not,  and  it 
became  necessary  for  our  Government  to  extend  such 
aid  to  them,  why  add  to  the  farmers'  burdens  an  un- 
necessary cost?  In  my  opinion,  and  I  speak  advis- 
edly, there  is  not  a  responsible  firm  doing  an  extensive 
and  reputable  farm  loan  business,  but  what  would  be 
more  than  willing,  if  the  Government  had  funds  for 
the  purpose,  to  take  this  money  and  loan  it  to  the 
farmers  at  four  and  one-half  per  cent,  instead  of  five 
and  one-half;  make  no  charge  either  to  the  farmers 
or  Government,  but  in  lieu  of  all  other  remuneration 
for  time  and  expenses,  accept  one-half  of  one  per  cent, 
per  annum  on  the  face  of  each  loan,  to  be  paid  to 
him  as  the  interest  was  collected.  Thus  the  farmer 
would  be  saved  one  to  one  and  one-half  per  cent,  per 
annum  on  interest,  and  the  Government  could  with- 
draw its  $9,000,000  capital,  and  incidentally  cut  off 
all  expenses  for  salaries,  office  rent,  stationery,  ad- 
vertising, etc. 

This  method  would  furnish  a  greater  guarantee, 
and  secure  better  loans  than  any  yet  devised.  First, 
because  none  but  firms  solidly  established  in  the  busi- 
ness could  afford  to  wait  three  to  five  years  before  re- 
ceiving any  profit  —  it  would  be  that  long  before  cash 
out  of  interest  received  would  be  equal  to  the  accumu- 
lated expense  of  the  business.  In  case  the  company 
(brokers)  failed,  the  one-half  of  one  per  cent,  on  all 
the  outstanding  loans  would  cover  the  expense  of  care 
and  collection  of  them.  As  to  the  safety  of  his  loans, 
no  broker  without  the  utmost  confidence  in  his  secur- 
ity would  do  business  on  this  basis,  and  with  such 
loans,  he  would  be  extra  conservative. 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  53 

What  does  this  one  per  cent,  of  extra  and  absolutely 
unnecessary  rate  mean?,  It  means  that  the  farmers 
pay  at  least  $2,000,000  per  annum  additional  interest. 
As  the  Land  Bank  loans  mature  in  from  five  to  twenty 
years  —  an  average  of  about  twelve  and  a  half  years 
—  these  borrowers  during  that  time  must  pay  $25,- 
000,000  for  the  privilege,  or  as  a  penalty,  of  having 
this  business  conducted  by  political  appointees,  instead 
of  by  responsible  men  with  long  years  of  experience 
in  that  particular  line  of  business.  One's  head  swims 
when  he  attempts  to  compute  the  amount  of  this  un- 
necessary burden,  when,  as  they  anticipate,  the  Fed- 
eral Land  Banks  shall  have  placed  upon  its  books 
$4,000,000,000  in  farm  mortgages.  How  much  will 
this  $40,000,000  per  annum  and  the  millions  to  follow 
increase  food  production,  or  aid  in  the  "  Betterment 
of  Agriculture"?  But  this  is  a  fair  sample  of  the 
so-called  "  Farm  Legislation." 


CHAPTER  XII 

It  may  be  suggested  that  the  law  as  enacted  pro- 
vides for  privately  incorporated  banks,  but  two  of  its 
provisions  are  fatal  to  the  successful  conducting  of 
their  business.  First:  The  volume  loaned  must  not 
exceed  fifteen  times  the  amount  of  the  capital  stock. 
That  means  that  when  this  capital  has  been  turned 
over  fifteen  times,  which  should  not  require  to  exceed 
three  to  four  years,  the  bank  must  wait  indefinitely 
without  income  —  that  is,  face  a  suspension  of  profits, 
but  continue  the  expense  of  caring  for  the  business, 
collecting  interest,  seeing  that  taxes  are  paid,  etc.,  for 
an  indefinite  period.  The  other  is  the  guaranteeing 
of  loans  made.  Large  capitalization  and  guarantees 
have  in  the  past  invariably  proven  to  be  ropes  of  sand 
binding  a  camouflage  to  conceal  doubtful  securities. 
More  than  98  per  cent,  of  all  losses  sustained  by  in- 
vestors in  mortgages  after  the  collapse  of  the  farm 
mortgage  boom  of  thirty  to  thirty-five  years  ago,  were 
on  guaranteed  mortgages. 

The  losses  on  unguaranteed  mortgages  were  almost 
infinitesimal.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  should  be  so. 
The  honorable  man  of  sanguine  temperament  will 
take  greater  hazard  on  an  investment  for  which  he 
himself  becomes  directly  liable  and  believes  himself 
responsible,  than  on  an  investment  for  another  made 
upon  honor.     Another  reason  why  the  guaranteeing 

54 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  55 

of  mortgages  is  unwise  is  that  practically  no  defaults 
occur  during  normal  times,  when  crops  and  prices  are 
fair,  and  plenty  of  money  available.  The  farmer, 
under  such  conditions,  can  always  borrow  money  to 
pay  his  coupon.  If  not,  he  can  usually  find  some  one, 
as  many  do,  from  whom  he  can  borrow  sufficient  to 
pay  the  existing  mortgage  and  defaulted  interest  on 
same. 

Such  general  defaults  and  foreclosure  eras  have 
been  far  removed  from  each  other  —  twenty  to  thirty 
years.  They  are  then  precipitated  as  the  result  of 
overstrained  credit,  crop  failure,  low  prices,  or  general 
financial  depression,  and  come  all  at  once.  Before 
the  climax  is  reached,  the  guarantors  have  exhausted 
their  resources  in  cashing  defaulted  coupons,  and  are 
forced  out  of  business  —  a  most  unfortunate  thing 
for  the  investor,  as  the  judicious  care  of  loans  at  such 
a  time  is  of  vastly  more  value  to  him  than  the  de- 
faulted interest  already  advanced.  Why  exact  a  guar- 
antee from  men  of  responsibility  and  long  experience 
in  that  particular  line,  and  not  from  irresponsible  and 
inexperienced  political  appointees? 

Under  the  Farm  Land  Bank  Act,  each  borrower  is 
compelled  to  invest  five  per  cent,  of  his  borrowings 
in  the  Land  Bank  Stock,  which  carries  a  double  lia- 
bility. This  could  be  retained  by  the  Government  on 
loans  made  through  private  agencies,  instead  of  held 
by  banks  as  now.  The  liability  on  this  stock,  how- 
ever, will,  if  default  be  made,  prove  of  little  worth. 
No  Congress  would  fail  to  give  relief  to  these  bor- 
rowers from  an  unwarranted  liability  imposed  under 
semi-duress.     There  is  nothing  in  precedent  or  busi- 


56  THE   FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

ness  prudence  that  justifies  the  guaranteeing  of  a  farm 
mortgage.  The  investors  who  relied  on  it  almost  in- 
variably lost;  those  who  did  not,  seldom  lost. 

The  Rural  Credit  System,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  ob- 
serve, has  not  increased  the  supply  of  food  stuffs  in 
the  slightest  degree.  It  will,  however,  if  carried  to 
its  proposed  objective,  place  an  absolutely  unnecessary 
fixed  charge  of  $40,000,000  to  be  paid  every  year  by 
the  farmer  borrowers  as  long  as  their  mortgages  run ; 
and  at  the  same  time  place  $4,000,000,000  of  presum- 
ably untaxable  securities  in  the  hands  of  profiteers, 
who  should  be  paying  taxes  and  buying  Liberty  Bonds. 
Appai  ently,  in  many  localities,  a  very  considerable  pro- 
portion of  these  loans  are  made  to  take  up  and  increase 
loans  already  resting  upon  the  farms.  The  surplus  is 
chiefly  devoted  to  either  absorb  the  accumulated  short- 
age in  farm  operation,  or  for  speculation.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  has  materially  increased  farm  land  spec- 
ulation, has  added  a  new  impetus  to  the  already  over- 
stimulated  land  boom,  which  will  ultimately  prove 
more  disastrous  than  any  previous  one,  for  the  reason 
that  the  worst  effect  of  every  boom  is  that  it  engen- 
ders a  distaste  for  legitimate  business, —  more  disas- 
trous, not  only  because  it  includes  a  vastly  larger  class 
than  was  included  in  previous  booms,  but  because  it 
affects  our  basic  and  creative  industry.  Whenever 
farmers  are  either  unable  or  unwilling  to  buy  goods, 
all  activities  between  the  farm  and  the  factory  are 
checked,  if  not  completely  arrested,  and  depression,  if 
not  panic,  follows. 

It  was  the  evident  intent  and  purpose  of  the  Law 
creating  Federal  Land  Banks,  that  credit  to  be  ex- 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  57 

tended  and  money  to  be  loaned  was  only  to  farmers 
—  those  actually  cultivating  the  land  mortgaged. 
This  construction  was  logical,  and  the  one  put  upon 
the  law  prior  to  a  meeting  of  the  presidents  of  the  Fed- 
eral Land  Banks  at  St.  Louis  recently.  Returning 
from  that  meeting,  the  president  of  the  Omaha  Fed- 
eral Land  Bank  is  quoted  in  the  press  as  saying,  among 
other  things,  "  They  have  decided  to  place  no  limita- 
tion on  the  sale  of  farm  lands;  in  other  words,  our 
borrowers  have  a  right  to  sell  when  and  where  they 
please;  the  purchaser  may  run  the  farm  or  rent  it  or 
do  anything  he  likes  with  the  land."  ..."  It  gives  us 
a  freer  hand  in  making  loans,  and  it  takes  off  limita- 
tions that  have  frightened  borrowers."  All  of  which 
are  a  tremendous  advantage  to  the  speculators,  invites 
fraud, — "  straw  "  borrowers,  etc. —  and  indicates,  as  I 
have  suggested,  that  the  system  is  giving  an  added 
impetus  to  the  "  land  boom,"  and  that  those  interested 
in  land  speculation  were  a  potent  factor  in  securing 
the  enactment  of  the  law. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

For  the  first  time,  class  consciousness  is  rapidly  de- 
veloping among  the  American  farmers.  Whether  this 
shall  be  for  the  weal  or  woe  of  our  country  will  depend 
upon  the  mental  condition  of  those  people  when  this 
consciousness  becomes  articulate.  If  that  voice  speaks 
only  of  discontent,  our  free  institutions  will  be  in 
danger.  For  whenever  any  man,  or  class  of  men,  take 
into  their  hands  the  redress  of  their  own  wrongs,  it 
ceases  to  be  redress,  and  at  once  becomes  reprisal,  if 
not  revenge.  That  mental  condition  will  depend 
largely  upon  their  financial  condition. 

As  I  have  stated  elsewhere,  the  financial  condition 
of  the  American  farmer  has  not  improved  during  the 
last  twenty  fruitful  years,  and  especially  during  the 
last  six  years.  Their  patriotism  is  repressing,  but  not 
eliminating,  the  tremendous  discontent  among  them. 
This  discontent  grows  constantly  worse.  Among  our 
other  laboring  masses,  discontent  is  evidenced  by  their 
incessant  strikes  and  their  loud  protests  against  the 
cost  of  living,  which  they  claim  has  been  increasing 
at  a  vastly  greater  ratio  than  the  increase  in  wage. 
These  things  are  ominous,  and  speak  volumes  concern- 
ing present  marketing  and  future  social  conditions. 
As  I  have  heretofore  asserted,  in  no  country  in  Eu- 
rope, during  the  last  two  decades,  have  the  farmers 
received  so  little  for  their  produce,  and  the  consumer 

58 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  59 

paid  so  much  for  their  food  stuffs,  as  in  this  country. 

My  plea  is  not  for  the  farmer  alone,  but  for  our 
whole  people.  The  underfeeding  of  the  masses,  and 
the  splitting  into  classes,  because  of  alleged  wrongs, 
has  been  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  every  republic 
throughout  the  world's  history.  Until  victory  is  won, 
patriotic  loyalty  will  not  be  found  wanting  in  the 
individuals  of  our  producing  or  our  consuming  classes. 
But  if  after  peace  negotiations  have  begun,  discontent 
among  these  two  great  classes,  both  wearied  of  war 
and  dissatisfied  with  the  net  results  of  their  labor 
and  the  unnecessarily  heavy  burdens  placed  upon  them, 
as  compared  with  those  of  the  mercantile  classes,  shall 
clamor  for  a  peace,  "  when  there  is  no  peace,"  and 
demand  that  any  cessation  of  war  is  better  than  its 
continuance,  forcing  our  Administration  into  a  peace 
that  is  not  a  complete  peace,  carrying  with  it  perma- 
nent and  complete  liberty  for  all  peoples,  it  will  be  a 
calamity  to  the  race.  In  time  of  peace,  our  country 
failed  to  prepare  for  war.  Shall  we  repeat  the  folly 
by  failing  in  time  of  war  to  prepare  for  peace  ? 

At  present,  when  every  good  citizen  is  keenly  alive 
to  the  necessity  and  value  of  loo  per  cent.  American- 
ism, it  is  an  opportune  moment  to  inaugurate  and 
press  forward  a  movement  in  that  direction. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  quoted  in  a  recent  speech  as  sug- 
gesting that  foreigners  unable  to  read  and  speak  our 
language  should  not  be  permitted  to  vote;  that  five 
years'  residence  here  should  be  the  limit  allowed  in 
which  to  acquire  our  language;  and  if  not  done  within 
that  time,  the  foreigner  should  be  forever  barred 
from  becoming  an  American  citizen;  that  after  the 


60  THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

war  laws  should  be  enacted  accordingly.  Why  after 
the  war?  Should  not  the  five  years'  previous  resi- 
dence, as  well  as  the  intellectual  qualifications,  apply 
to  all  foreign  bom  —  those  now  here,  as  well  as  those 
to  come  in  the  future? 

It  takes  vastly  less  time  to  master  our  language  than 
to  comprehend,  absorb  and  become  embued  with  the 
true  spirit  of  American  institutions.  Why  wait  until 
after  the  war  for  such  legal  enactments  ? 

The  inherent  weakness  of  all  democracies  has  been 
mental  inertia  —  a  tendency  to  act  on  collective  im- 
pulse, whose  origin  is  suggestion  —  instead  of  from 
individual  investigation  and  reason.  If  these  sug- 
gestions be  sinister,  the  results  are  pernicious.  Hyp- 
notism of  the  crowd  is  the  most  prolific  source  of  mal- 
legislation. 

Immediately  after  victory,  our  nation  will  be  con- 
fronted with  the  most  complex,  difficult  and  far- 
reaching  economic  and  social  questions  ever  submitted 
to  a  people.  It  will  be  unfortunate,  beyond  words  to 
express,  if  at  that  time  the  balance  of  voting  power 
rests  with  citizens  of  foreign  birth  and  parentage  — 
ignorant  of  our  history,  traditions  and  the  fundamen- 
tal principles  of  our  Government.  Had  a  vote  been 
taken  sixty  days  before,  or  even  sixty  days  after,  we 
entered  the  war,  these  foreigners,  following  the  few 
noisy  pacifists,  would  have  placed  our  nation  in  the 
list  of  neutrals ;  not  because  the  immigrants  were  pro- 
German  or  pro-Ally,  but  simply  because  they  were 
anti-war,  utterly  unable  to  comprehend  the  difference 
between  a  war  of  aggression  and  conquest,  and  a  war 
for  defense  and  liberty. 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  6 1 

After  peace  is  declared,  the  mental  and  moral  fiber 
of  nations  will  be  subjected  to  the  supreme  test.  In- 
ternal reconstruction  —  readjustment  of  classes  and 
the  establishment  of  individual  rights  —  must  come. 
Unless  our  people  comprehend  more  clearly,  and  think 
more  logically  on  questions  of  government  and  human 
rights  than  other  peoples  have  in  the  past,  is  not  our 
Republic  likely  to  follow  its  predecessors  —  a  flaming 
meteor  on  the  sky-line  of  oblivion?  But  I  have  an 
abiding  faith  in  the  American  people,  and  because  of 
them,  "  liberty  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 
Should  not  those  in  position  of  influence  and  authority 
be  helping  to  prepare  our  people  for  this  momentous 
epoch  in  the  world's  history  ? 

Our  post-bellum  questions  will  be  vastly  more  diffi- 
cult to  understand,  and  hence  offer  a  more  promising 
field  for  the  political  demagogue,  and  these  —  you 
may  rest  assured  —  will  be  here  in  abundance,  as  un- 
fortunately men  of  their  fiber  are  not  on  the  firing  line 
and  race  suicide  will  never  reach  that  class. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

For  more  than  a  century,  colored  slaves  did  all  man- 
ual labor  on  the  farms  in  the  South,  and  it  seems  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible,  for  the  Southern  statesmen  to 
differentiate  between  that  race  —  whose  origin  was 
the  jungle  and  whose  education  was  under  the  mas- 
ter's lash  —  and  the  American  farmer,  whose  origin 
was  among  the  most  God-fearing,  liberty-loving 
classes  in  the  civilized  world,  and  whose  education  has 
been  broader  and  deeper  than  that  of  the  masses  of 
any  other  nation  or  class  of  laborers  in  the  world's 
history.  They  continue  to  look  upon ,  the  American 
farmers  as,  if  not  in  part  and  parcel,  at  least  analogous 
to  the  ex-slave  —  his  psychology  materially  different 
from  that  of  other  men  —  an  element  to  be  used,  but 
always  restrained  —  kept  down.  This  attitude  to- 
wards manual  laborers  —  and  especially  field  labor- 
ers—  this  fading  stain  of  slavery  on  Southern  men- 
tality, may  be  observed  in  nearly  every  legislative  ac- 
tion looking  to  the  "  Betterment  of  Agriculture." 
For  example:  On  the  vote  to  make  the  so-called 
minimum  price  of  wheat  —  in  fact,  the  maximum 
price  in  effect  —  $2.50  per  bushel,  of  the  members 
from  nine  leading  Southern  States,  are  reported  as  six 
voting  for  and  sixty-two  against  giving  the  farmer  a 
possibility  of  profit  on  his  crop.     The  measure  was 

defeated  by  a  majority  of  only  twenty-seven. 

62 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  63 

Sugar  and  cotton  are  war  essentials,  the  same  as 
wheat  and  wool.  The  producer's  price  on  the  latter 
two  are  restricted;  on  the  former  two,  it  is  unre- 
stricted. Why,  if  not  because  the  cotton  and  cane 
fields  are  owned  by  the  "  planters  " —  the  forefront 
and  bulwark  of  Southern  aristocracy, —  and  have  been 
for  a  hundred  years;  the  wheat  fields  and  pastures 
owned  by  farmers  —  field  hands?  High  price  of  cot- 
ton in  1914-15  was  $10.38.  High  price  1917-18, 
$34.10  —  approximately  230  per  cent,  increase.  Av- 
erage price  of  wheat  1914-15,  $1,165;  Gore  Amend- 
ment as  passed  (and  vetoed),  $2.40;  approximately 
130  per  cent,  increase. 

I  have  taken  at  random  nine  Northern  States, 
which,  in  191 5,  produced  an  aggregate  of  649,949,000 
bushels  of  wheat.  The  average  consumption  per  cap- 
ita in  those  States  was  6.24  bushels.  Ten  Southern 
States,  taken  at  random,  produced  in  191 5,  an  aggre- 
gate of  77,800,000,  with  the  average  consumption  per 
capita  in  those  States  of  4.54  bushels.  Why  should 
those  Southern  Congressmen,  representing  people  who 
produce  and  consume  so  little  and  who  had  so  little 
knowledge  of  wheat  growing,  so  over-whelmingly 
defeat  this  measure?  Neither  from  a  standpoint  of 
consumption  nor  the  standpoint  of  production  were 
they  justified  in  exercising  such  arbitrary  power. 
It  has  been  the  votes  of  those  least  qualified  to 
know,  and  least  disposed  to  care  concerning  the 
matter,  that  have  usually  defeated  every  bill  for 
the  "  Betterment  of  Agriculture."  These  Congress- 
men being  familiar  with  those  industries,  were,  in 
my  opinion,  doubtless  justified  in  preventing  any  re- 


64  THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

striction  being  placed  upon  cotton  and  sugar.  By 
the  same  token,  Congressmen  from  the  chief  wheat 
producing  States,  in  a  position  to  know  better  than 
others  agricultural  conditions  in  their  respective  locali- 
ties, should  have  been  deferred  to  in  Legislation  con- 
cerning those  commodities.  Any  restriction  of  cot- 
ton, wool  or  food  stuffs,  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  mistake. 
There  has  never  existed  a  Nation,  whose  masses  were 
too  well  clad  or  surfeited  with  wholesome  food. 

On  the  other  hand,  our  profiteers  look  upon  the 
farmers  as  the  largest  unorganized  class,  and,  there- 
fore, furnishing  the  broadest  and  richest  field  for  ex- 
ploitation. These  two  influences  have  usually  been 
sufficient  to  defeat  or  divert  broad,  intelligent  legisla- 
tion, helpful  to  agriculture.  Again,  Congress  has 
been  handicapped  by  the  lack  of  reliable  and  accurate 
information,  which  should  have  been  furnished  by  the 
Federal  Department  of  Agriculture,  the  Agricultural 
Departments  of  our  State  Universities,  and  others. 
The  discussions  on  the  floors  of  Congress  over  the 
bill  to  increase  government  price  of  wheat  betrays 
gross  ignorance  of  our  agricultural  conditions. 

So  far  as  I  can  learn,  all  figures,  compilations  made 
and  conclusions  reached  by  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture on  these  subjects,  have  their  origin  in  and  are 
based  upon  the  accumulated  "  guesses  "of  men  in  each 
township  or  precinct.  These  men  neither  survey  the 
land  nor  measure  the  grain.  As  a  preliminary  esti- 
mate this  may  answer,  but  when  all  cereals  are  in  the 
granaries  or  cribs,  our  Food  Administrator  should  have 
positive  and  accurate  knowledge  of  how  much  there 
is  of  each  cereal  and  where  it  is  located,  if  he  is  to 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  65 

successfully  discharge  the  duties  of  his  colossal  trust. 
To  this  end,  every  threshing  machine,  clover  huller, 
cotton  gin,  etc.,  should  be  required  to  secure  a  Federal 
license.     The  license  fees  should  be  nominal,  but  the 
failure  to  procure  and  furnish  data,  or  the  neglect  to 
follow  and  promptly  comply  with  the  rules  and  regu- 
lations, should  be  subjected  to  severe  penalty.     With 
each  license,  there  should  be  sent  a  package  of  properly 
printed  post  cards,  addressed  to  the  Food  Administra- 
tor's representative  in  the  licensee's  county.     These 
licensees  should  be  required  to  fill  out  and  mail  one  of 
these  daily,  during  the  threshing  season,  giving  the 
exact  number  of  bushels  of  each  cereal  threshed  on 
that  date,  estimated  acres  of  grain,  for  whom,  and  the 
owner's  post-office  address.     As  there  is  now  a  rural 
mail  box  on  practically  every  farm,  less  than  five  min- 
utes daily  of  the  thresher's  time  would  be  required  to 
fill  out  and  mail  these  cards.     The  county  agent  should 
tabulate  these  at  the  end  of  each  week  or  month,  and 
transmit   the   results   to  the  Food   Administrator  at 
Washington.     Thus,  by  November  ist  of  each  year, 
the  Food  Administrator  will  know  exactly  the  amount 
of  each  cereal  in  the  country,  and  just  where  it  is  lo- 
cated.    He  would  then  not  only  be  able  to  make  defi- 
nite plans,  but  to  have  each  mill  supplied  with  wheat 
from  the  adjacent  or  nearest  territory,  thus  making  a 
great  saving  of  time,   fuel,   rolling  stock  and  man- 
power.    The  Food  Administrator,  if  wheat  deliveries 
were  slow,  would  know  just  what  communities  were 
withholding  their  wheat,  and  the  card  index  in  the 
hands  of  his  county  representative,  in  case  requisitions 
were  necessary,  would  show  exactly  where  each  bushel 


66  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

of  wheat  in  his  community  was  located.  With  this 
system  estabHshed,  preliminary  estimates  would  in 
time  become  more  accurate  and  valuable,  as  there 
would  be  a  positive  check  against  them.  As  it  is  now, 
they  are  of  little  or  no  value,  because  we  have  never 
been  able  to  know  with  any  degree  of  accuracy  the 
number  of  bushels  of  any  cereal  produced  in  any  par- 
ticular year.  We  may  find  out  how  much  has  reached 
the  elevators,  but  there  is  not  at  present,  nor  has  there 
ever  been,  a  way  of  knowing  the  amount  retained  upon 
the  farms  for  seed  and  home  consumption,  the  amount 
wasted,  fed  to  stock,  or  amount  sold  to  local  mills. 
Possibly  other  valuable  information  might  be  secured 
at  the  same  time,  and  means  devised  to  secure  authen- 
tic data  in  regard  to  com,  and  I  feel  sure  that  a  similar 
plan  might  be  worked  out  concerning  our  meat,  and 
other  products.  The  cost  would  be  nominal,  the  re- 
sults of  enormous  value.  Incidentally,  this  method 
would  interfere  with  the  cornering  of  the  cereal  mar- 
ket and  the  wholesale  exploitation  of  food  stuffs. 
Conjectures  by  the  Department  of  Agriculture  have 
been  very  expensive.  In  the  past,  false  or  erroneous 
reports  in  regard  to  crop  conditions  and  yields  have 
induced  the  farmers  to  hurry  their  grain  to  market, 
only  to  find  that  a  little  later,  when  the  bulk  of  the 
crops  was  in  the  central  elevators,  the  reports  were 
misleading  and  prices  advanced. 

A  recent  report  of  the  Federal  Trade  Commission 
throws  light  upon  the  ignorance,  injustice  or  indiffer- 
ence of  Congressmen  concerning  the  American  farmer 
or  farming  interests.  In  a  dispatch  to  the  Omaha 
World-Herald  dated  Washington,  June  29,  19 18,  the 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  67 

commission  is  quoted  as  saying  in  substance:  That 
the  profits  on  milling  increased  from  12  per  cent,  for 
the  four  years  ending  June  30,  19 16,  to  nearly  38  per 
cent,  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  191 7;  and  then  in 
quotation,  presumably  from  the  commission's  report, 
said,  "  These  profits  " —  it  is  stated  — "  are  indefensi- 
ble, considering  that  an  average  profit  of  one  mill  for 
six  months  of  the  year  showed  as  high  as  $2  a  barrel." 
If  these  things  be  true,  it  is  evident  that  the  profiteers 
were  appropriating  to  themselves  all  and  more  than 
would  have  gone  to  the  farmers  under  the  Gore 
Amendment.  The  farmers  fail  to  see  how  the  taking 
of  money  out  of  their  own  pockets  and  putting  it  into 
the  pockets  of  the  profiteers  savors  of  patriotism. 
Possibly  these  Congressmen  can  explain.  As  the  Gore 
Amendment  was  before  House  and  Senate  for  several 
months,  its  passage  vigorously  contested  by  these 
statesmen,  and  "  these  indefensible  conditions "  in 
the  milling  business,  according  to  the  Federal  Trade 
Commission,  continued  for  at  least  six  months,  these 
Congressmen  were  estopped  from  pleading  ignorance. 
Will  the  Food  Administration  advance  the  price  of 
wheat,  and  thus  stimulate  production,  or  does  it  con- 
sider this  extravagant  margin  between  price  of  wheat 
to  producer  and  cost  of  flour  to  the  consumer  as  legiti- 
mate plunder  for  the  profiteers?  The  consumers 
would  rather  pay  a  higher  price  for  flour  than  to  con- 
tinue to  pay  the  extortionate  prices  now  exacted  for  its 
inferior  substitutes. 


CHAPTER  XV 

Nothing  touching  the  food  question  can  be  done  so 
mutually  advantageous  to  both  producers  and  consum- 
ers as  the  enactment  of  a  law  creating  and  encourag- 
ing grain  elevators,  analogous  to  the  law  for  the 
establishment,  encouragement  and  supervision  of 
national  banks.  Not  government-owned  elevators,  but 
simply  those  authorized,  licensed,  encouraged  and  su- 
pervised by  the  Government.  These  should  be  re- 
quired to  file  reports,  showing  capital,  assets  and 
liabilities,  with  the  Food  Administrator  at  Washing- 
ton, and  to  publish  these  reports  the  same  as  the  banks 
now  do  at  the  call  of  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency. 
They  should  also  be  subject  to  inspection  by  Federal 
examiners  the  same  as  the  banks.  These  inspections 
and  reports  would  be  much  more  effective,  accurate 
and  valuable  than  those  concerning  the  banks.  Prac- 
tically all  that  the  reports  to  the  Comptroller,  made 
either  by  the  bank  itself  or  by  the  National  Examiner, 
show  is  the  face  value  of  the  paper  held,  not  the  intrin- 
sic value  of  that  paper. 

One-tenth  the  time  required  to  examine  a  bank 
would  be  required  to  examine  an  elevator  of  the  same 
amount  of  assets,  and  these  reports  would  be  absolute, 
not  only  as  to  the  amount,  but  as  to  the  quality  of  each 
cereal.  These  warehouse  certificates  would  be  the 
best  of  collateral  and  everywhere  accepted,  and  would 

68 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  69 

give  to  the  farmers,  whether  great  or  small,  a  credit 
accordingly  —  a  credit  of  real  value  to  them,  instead 
of  to  the  exploiters.  Their  funds  would  be  available 
when  needed  —  interest  stopped  when  the  emergency- 
passed.  On  account  of  the  high  cost  of  labor  and  ma- 
terial, an  almost  infinitesimal  percentage  of  our  farm- 
ers have  suitable  and  permanent  storage  for  their 
grain.  Hence,  there  is  enormous  waste.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  stored  on  the  farms,  it  adds  little  or 
nothing  to  their  credit  except  locally.  Therefore, 
most  of  them  are  obliged  to  sell  as  soon  as  the  grain 
is  harvested.  Such  a  system  would  tend  to  a  more 
even  distribution  of  sales  of  farm  products  through- 
out the  year,  and  check  the  sharp  market  fluctua- 
tions, which  are  of  advantage  only  to  the  profiteer. 
Small  mills  would  spring  up  as  they  did  before  dis- 
criminating freight  rates  drove  the  small  miller,  and 
with  him  the  local  storage  warehouse,  out  of  business. 
In  addition  to  discriminating  rates  and  lack  of  storage 
facilities,  the  country  miller,  during  a  large  part  of 
the  years,  has  to  buy  his  grain  from  the  elevators  in 
the  large  grain  centers,  subjecting  him  not  only  to  the 
expense  of  brokers'  commission  and  profits,  but  to 
freight  on  the  grain  to  and  from  those  centers. 

It  is  an  economic  absurdity  that  a  large  percentage 
of  the  flour  consumed  in  such  States  as  Iowa,  Nebraska 
and  Illinois  should  be  milled  at  Kansas  City  or  Minne- 
apolis, or  other  cities  entirely  outside  of  these  States. 

The  trend  of  traffic  in  the  United  States  is  along 
east  and  west  lines,  so  except  what  little  goes  by  the 
Great  Lakes  during  summer  season,  all  food  stuffs 
produced  west  of  the  Great  Lakes  must  be  brought 


70  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

south  to  get  around  Lake  Michigan  on  its  way  to  the 
seaboard  and  our  great  consuming  centers.  So  the 
Nebraska,  Iowa  and  Illinois  wheat  sent  to  Minneapolis 
for  milling,  and  later  to  the  Eastern  markets,  must 
be  subjected  to  the  unnecessary  expense  of  freight  to 
and  from  the  initial  point  to  Minneapolis.  Again,  a 
line  east  and  west  through  the  south  point  of  Lake 
Michigan  is  approximately  the  dividing  line  between 
our  winter  and  spring  wheat  areas,  and  as  large 
quantities  are  shipped  from  each  area  to  the  other 
to  be  mixed  in  milling,  this  enormous  expense  can 
be  avoided  by  milling  the  grain  near  this  dividing 
line,  or  —  during  the  war,  at  least  —  in  the  Allied 
countries.  They  need  the  by-products,  as  well  as  the 
flour. 

As  every  one  knows,  these  uneconomic  practices 
were  the  result  of  specially  low  rates  north  and  south 
to  meet  "  river  competition  " —  in  other  words,  to  rob 
the  public  at  large  from  the  benefits  of  water  trans- 
portation on  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  rivers. 
With  government  control  of  railroads,  it  would  seem 
that  there  was  no  longer  any  possible  excuse  for  con- 
tinuing this  unnecessary  burden  upon  producers  and 
consumers  —  taking  from  the  selling  price  of  the  for- 
mer or  adding  to  the  purchase  price  of  the  latter,  and 
continuing  the  waste  of  fuel,  man-power  and  rolling 
stock.  As  to  the  economy  in  milling,  because  of  water 
power,  large  capacity  of  mills,  etc.,  one  may  not  be  an 
expert,  may  even  be  a  novice  in  the  milling  industry, 
to  see  the  fallacy  of  this  theory.  A  few  decades  back, 
local  toll  mills  were  all  over  the  country,  and  few 
States  but  what  had  laws  governing  them.     In  most 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  7 1 

States,  the  miller's  remuneration  was  restricted  to  one- 
tenth  to  one-eighth  of  the  wheat  ground,  or  its  equiva- 
lent in  money.  From  almost  any  railway  station  in 
Nebraska,  the  freight  to  Minneapolis  on  a  bushel  of 
wheat  is  more  than  one-eighth  of  its  value,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  freight  for  returning  the  flour  and  by- 
products—  bran,  middlings,  etc.  The  average  price 
of  wheat  from  1893  to  191 5  inclusive  in  the  Chicago 
market  was  88.3  cents  per  bushel.  The  freight  on  a 
bushel  of  wheat  from  central  Nebraska  to  Minneapolis 
on  rates  quoted  just  prior  to  advance  under  Govern- 
ment control  was  13.74  cents  per  bushel,  or  one-sixth, 
instead  of  one-eighth,  the  value  of  the  wheat.  The 
same  applies  to  the  by-products  —  bran,  shorts,  mid- 
dlings—  indispensable  to  successful  dairying.  The 
high  cost  of  these  commodities  has  practically  driven 
the  small  farmer  out  of  the  dairy  business,  resulting 
in  an  increased  cost  of  milk,  butter  and  cheese  to  the 
consuming  public.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  larger  profits 
to  the  farmer  do  not  necessarily  mean  higher  prices  to 
the  consumer.  In  fact,  with  marketing  conditions 
such  as  obtained  before  the  war  in  nearly  all  European 
countries,  the  price  of  food  stuffs  to  our  consumers 
could  have  been  largely  diminished  during  the  last 
twenty  years,  and  at  the  same  time  profits  to  the  farm- 
ers enormously  increased. 

As  side-lights  on  the  present  agricultural  situation 
in  general  and  evidences  of  the  deplorable  marketing 
conditions,  some  contemporaneous  facts  should  be  con- 
sidered. One  of  these  is  the  dividend  of  $80,000,000 
—  400  per  cent. —  on  the  capital  of  $20,000,000  re- 
ported declared  in  19 16  by  one  of  the  packing  com- 


y2  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

panics.  At  the  time  this  dividend  was  declared, 
press  dispatches  quoted  the  vice-president  of  the  com- 
pany, in  explaining  it,  as  saying :  "  The  $80,000,000  " 
(this  dividend)  "surplus  involved  in  the  increased 
capitalization  stock  dividend  was  earned  in  the  period 
from  1901  to  1912,  when  few  dividends  were  paid." 
A  "  few  "  cannot  be  less  than  two  —  probably  several 

—  but  even  if  dividends  covering  only  two  years'  prof- 
its had  been  declared,  it  would  still  leave  a  net  annual 
earning  of  44.4  per  cent,  covering  the  other  nine  years, 
and  this  without  taking  into  consideration  the  princely 
salaries  usually  paid  stockholders  of  such  concerns  as 
officers  of  the  companies.  Table  No.  2  is  taken  from 
the  April  number  of  the  Farmer's  Open  Forum,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C,  in  its  discussion  of  the  Heney  investi- 
gation. This  table  does  not  indicate  that  profits  have 
been  reduced  to  any  great  extent. 

Table  No.  2 

PROFITS  SUMMARY  OF  THE  BIG  FIVE  PACKERS 

IN  1917 

Capital  Profit  Per 

stock  and  loss  Net  cent 

■  outstanding  surplus  Sales  income       earned 

Swift    &    Co $100,000,000  $59,965,000  $875,000,000  $34,650,000  34.65 

Armour    &    Co 100,000,000  56,126,680  575,000,000  21,293,563  21.29 

Morris  &  Co 3,000,000  37.293,554  (not  given)  5,401,071  180.04 

Cudahy  Packing  Co.     20,000,000  7,730,120  i84»8ii,ooo  4,430,530  22.15 

Wilson  &  Co.,   Inc.     30,476,400  15.051,045  (not  given)  6,504,422  21.34 

Facts  disclosed  at  the  investigation  started  (but  not 
completed)  by  Mr.  Heney,  at  Chicago  —  the  ratio  of 
the  price  of  live  hogs  to  cost,  as  shown  in  Table  No.  i 

—  would  indicate  that  the  packing  business  had  been 
vastly  more  profitable  than  disclosed  by  the  above  fig- 
ures. Why  was  the  Heney  investigation  carried  to  the 
point  of  maximum  benefit  to  organized  labor  in  the 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  73 

packing  houses,  and  abandoned  just  at  a  point  when 
facts  were  being  disclosed  which  should  be  of  advan- 
tage to  unorganized  labor  on  the  farms  and  the  con- 
suming public  —  throwing  light  upon  the  internal 
workings  of  the  big  packing  concerns  in  our  meat  in- 
dustry? If  present  laws  were  inadequate,  why  should 
not  Congress,  then  in  session,  have  immediately,  by 
amending  them,  furnished  a  remedy?  Has  the  lamp 
of  the  legislative  Diogenes  gone  out  in  a  search  for 
"  combination  in  restraint  of  trade,"  or  is  it  because  he 
feels  that  it  is  only  a  bunch  of  unorganized  farmers 
who  are  making  complaint  —  the  consumers  being  ig- 
norant of  the  source  of  their  trouble,  the  misinformed, 
subsidized  or  misguided  press  assuring  them  that  it  is 
to  be  found  in  the  greed  of  the  farmers? 


CHAPTER  XVI 

The  state  census  of  Iowa,  191 5,  covers  seven  years 
of  those  included  in  the  packers'  dividends  quoted 
above.  This  census  shows,  among  other  facts,  that  the 
total  buildings,  implements  and  live  stock  on  the  aver- 
age farm  in  that  State,  one  hundred  and  sixty- four 
acres,  were  worth  only  $4,391.80.  The  mortgage 
on  the  average  Iowa  farm  is  more  than  that.  If 
to  that  we  add  the  farmers'  local  indebtedness  to 
banks,  etc.,  the  depreciation  of  soil  (25  to  50  per 
cent.),  what  have  the  farmers  of  Iowa  to  show  for 
more  than  two  generations  of  hard  work,  with  the 
minimum  amount  of  recreation  and  luxury  of  anv 
kind?  A  result  of  these  conditions  is  reflected  in  a 
loss,  during  the  decade  covered  by  the  last  Federal 
census,  of  about  one  hundred  thousand  of  its  farm 
population.  The  state  census,  under  the  head  of  "  Oc- 
cupation," shows  that  during  the  decade,  the  number 
following  agricultural  pursuits  decreased  from  40.7 
per  cent,  in  1905  to  36.3  per  cent,  in  191 5;  those  in 
"  Trade  and  Transportation  "  increased  from  16.4  per 
cent,  in  1905  to  25.4  per  cent,  in  191 5 ;  that  the  num- 
ber of  cattle  turned  in  for  assessment  was  practically 
a  half  million  less  than  those  turned  in  ten  years  be- 
fore. That  48.4  per  cent,  of  the  acreage  of  Iowa 
farms  are  operated  by  renters.  As  the  rented  farms 
are  smaller,  and  as  a  rule  no  help  is  hired  upon  them, 

74 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  75 

while  the  farms  operated  by  owners  are  larger,  and 
they  hire  much  help,  this  means  that  60  per  cent,  of 
the  people  on  the  farms  of  Iowa  own  no  land  and  little 
other  property.  Iowa  is  undoubtedly  the  best  agricul- 
tural State  in  the  Union,  if  not  the  best  agricultural 
area  in  the  world, —  its  people  the  most  intelligent 
(having  only  one  per  cent,  of  illiteracy)  of  any  com- 
munity of  its  size  in  the  World.  If  with  all  these 
favorable  factors,  the  above  lamentable  conditions  ex- 
ist, what  must  be  the  condition  of  the  farms  and  farm- 
ers in  other  States  less  favored  by  soil,  climatic  condi- 
tions, and  especially  those  who  after  more  than  a  cen- 
tury of  use  have  only  an  impoverished  or  exhausted 
soil? 

Again,  Nebraska,  one  of  the  most  fertile  agricul- 
tural States  in  the  West  —  and  perhaps  the  most  ex- 
clusively agricultural  State  in  the  Union  —  on  a  parity 
with  Iowa  as  to  soil,  climatic  conditions,  and  character 
of  its  farmers,  containing  approximately  150,000 
farms  —  during  ten  years  —  six  of  them  included  in 
the  eleven  mentioned  in  interview  with  packer  re- 
ferred to  —  increased  its  farm  mortgage  indebtedness 
at  least  $180,000,000.  (Exact  figures  are  not  obtain- 
able, as  during  each  of  those  years  from  three  to  nine 
counties,  evidently  not  pleased  with  the  showing  made, 
failed  to  report.  Without  these,  the  aggregate  in- 
crease shown  in  those  reports  was  $162,274,364.30.) 
The  highest  estimate  made  by  those  in  position  to 
know,  is  that  this  $180,000,000  constituted  only  35 
per  cent,  to  40  per  cent,  of  the  mortgages  then  resting 
on  the  farms  of  Nebraska;  but  assuming  that  it  is  40 
per  cent,  the  highest  estimate,  that  would  make  the 


yd  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

total  farm  mortgage  indebtedness  of  the  State  $450,- 
000,000.     This  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  low  estimate. 

Bulletin  No.  210  of  the  Nebraska  State  Department 
of  Agriculture,  dated  November  25,  1916,  shows  that 
the  total  value  of  all  permanent  improvements,  all 
the  cattle,  horses,  mules,  sheep  and  hogs  on  the  farm, 
is,  in  the  aggregate  (and  this  on  a  very  liberal  basis), 
worth  $353,933,047.  So  that  the  Nebraska  farmers 
have  earned,  as  a  result  of  more  than  fifty  years'  labor, 
since  Nebraska  became  a  State,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
work  done  during  territorial  days,  a  meager  living,  and 
at  least  $90,000,000  less  than  the  mortgage  indebted- 
ness for  their  labor.  To  this  deficit  should  be  added 
indebtedness  to  banks,  etc.,  for  implements,  store  debts, 
etc.,  which  would  amount  to  millions  more. 

If  the  pauper  peasantry  of  Russia,  occupying  an 
area  equal  to  that  bounded  on  the  north  by  a  parallel 
drawn  through  the  southern  borders  of  the  Great 
Lakes,  on  the  west  by  the  looth  Meridian,  on  the  south 
by  a  parallel  through  the  Ohio  River,  and  on  the  east 
by  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  could  borrow  an  amount 
equal  to  the  mortgages  now  resting  upon  the  farms  of 
that  area  —  the  very  heart  of  the  Com  Belt  —  it  would 
have  suf^cient  money  to  duplicate  every  house,  bam, 
granary,  crib  and  fence;  to  buy  all  the  cattle,  horses, 
hogs  and  sheep  now  upon  those  farms ;  and  have  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  dollars  left  with  which  to  buy 
Ford  cars,  Victrolas  and  see  the  "  movies." 

Such  a  loan  made  to  them  by  the  Allies  would  tem- 
porarily suspend  the  Bolshevik  movement  now  devas- 
tating Russia.  But  should  the  Allies  at  the  same  time 
impose  upon  these  peasants  the  same  labor  and  mar- 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  'jy 

keting  conditions  which  have  rested  upon  the  Amer- 
ican farmers  during  the  last  ten  years  —  that  is,  in 
spite  of  their  utmost  efforts,  the  mortgage  indebtedness 
could  not  be  reduced,  but  on  the  contrary,  has  been 
augmented  at  an  ever-increasing  ratio  from  year  to 
year;  and  millionaires  would,  in  Russia,  multiply  just 
as  they  multiplied  in  our  country  during  the  last  two 
decades.  But  Bolshevism  will  rejuvenate  itself,  not 
to  fight  with  pitchfork  and  club,  but  with  bayonets 
and  machine  guns,  and  just  so  sure  as  our  labor  and 
marketing  conditions  are  not  changed  for  the  better, 
an  agrarian  revolution  in  America  is  inevitable. 
Many  think  that  in  the  Non-Partisan  League  they 
see  the  beginning  of  such  a  revolution,  and  are  alarmed. 
This  revolution  would  probably  be  bloodless,  but  it 
would  sow  the  seeds  of  an  anarchy  worse,  if  possible, 
than  Bolshevism  of  to-day. 

The  most  grave  question  before  the  American  people 
is  not  as  to  the  issues  of  the  great  war,  but  whether 
or  not,  when  victory  is  won,  personal  and  property 
rights,  regardless  of  class,  shall  be  recognized  and  se- 
cure in  our  land. 

As  to  the  profits  on  increased  value  of  land,  every 
intelligent  farmer  knows  that  his  acres  in  virgin  soil, 
still  unprofaned  by  the  plow,  are  more  salable,  as  well 
as  of  greater  intrinsic  value,  than  those  that  he  has  so 
laboriously  and  profitlessly  tilled,  and  that  the  advance 
in  selling  price,  be  it  great  or  small,  is  not  so  large  but 
that  his  equity  is  more  than  likely  to  be  wiped  out  by 
the  first  financial  depression;  just  as  such  equities 
were  wiped  out  by  the  thousands  during  the  depression 
that  followed  the  panics  of  1837,  1857,  1873  3-nd  1893. 


78  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

The  ratio  of  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  farmers'  pre- 
sumable equity  to  their  indebtedness  is  less  now  than 
in  either  of  the  four  preceding  periods  referred  to. 

I  know  of  no  State  in  the  Union  which  would  make 
a  showing  more  favorable  than  either  Iowa  or  Ne- 
braska. 

It  is  these  thoughts  that  have  prompted  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  the  best  American  farmers  to  realize  upon 
their  equities  while  it  is  possible.  It  is  their  energy, 
efficiency  and  money,  driven  thence  by  our  intolerable 
labor  and  marketing  conditions,  that  has  made  possible 
the  wonderful  development  and  prosperity  of  the  Ca- 
nadian Northwest. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

In  June,  I  spent  ten  days  in  one  of  the  most  fertile 
sections  of  Illinois.  Leaving  it  on  an  interurban  rail- 
way, I  shared  a  seat  with  a  factory  operative  —  a 
farm-reared  boy  —  on  his  way  to  work.  He  pointed 
out  his  father's  farm,  where  he  was  born.  He  told  me 
that  his  wage  was  52  cents  per  hour,  but  at  the  end 
of  each  week,  if  he  worked  full  schedule  time  for  the 
six  days,  he  received  a  bonus  of  $7.80  —  $1.30  per 
day  —  or  about  11  cents  per  hour  additional.  This 
was  not  for  service  rendered  at  all  —  that  was  already 
fully  paid  for;  no  such  excuse  or  pretense  was  made. 
This  bonus  was  simply  a  reward  for  working  regular 
schedule  time  at  an  extremely  liberal  wage  —  a  wage 
400  per  cent,  higher  than  is  received  by  the  average 
farm  owner  if  he  be  allowed  3  per  cent,  on  his  money 
invested.  The  income  tax  returns  confirm  this.  Only 
one  farmer  in  four  hundred  has  a  gross  income  of 
$3000,  and  this  without  allowing  anything  for  wages 
paid  his  sons  or  other  members  of  the  family.  Why 
should  this  young  man  and  his  brothers  remain  on  the 
farm  ?  Did  this  young  man  own  a  farm  —  all  the 
acres  he  could  possibly  work  —  he  could  not  afford  to 
till  it.  It  would  be  more  profitable  to  let  it  lie  fallow, 
and  stick  to  his  job.  They  are  not  remaining,  and  tens 
of  thousands  of  their  fellows  are  leaving  the  farms 
for  similar  reasons. 

79 


8o  THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

In  the  whole  history  of  the  development  of  our  coun- 
try, from  the  time  the  New  Englanders  first  began  to 
migrate  to  the  country  west  of  the  Alleghanies,  there 
has  been  no  parallel  to  the  high  character  of  the  farm- 
ers emigrating  from  the  best  States  of  the  Corn  Belt 
to  the  Canadian  Provinces.  In  the  settlement  of  the 
great  plains  and  valleys  between  the  Alleghanies  and 
the  Rockies,  the  average  emigrant  from  States  farther 
east  seldom  brought  more  than  a  poor  team,  one  cow, 
plow,  harrow  and  a  few  household  goods,  aggregating 
on  the  average  less  than  $300  per  family. 

The  Canadian  records  show  that  the  assets  of  the 
average  emigrant,  coming  from  the  American  farms 
to  their  Northwest  Provinces,  vary  from  $3,000  to 
$10,000  in  money,  together  with  an  ample  supply  of 
farm  implements  and  household  goods.  Yet  in  view 
of  these  appalling  facts,  the  present  Congress,  panicky 
in  the  fear  that  the  American  farmer  may  be  too  pros- 
perous, is  so  restricting  the  prices  on  his  leading  com- 
modities, that  under  present  labor  and  marketing  con- 
ditions, their  production  is  unprofitable.  This,  too,  in 
face  of  the  fact  that  organized  labor  and  most  com- 
mercial enterprises  are  reaping  greater  profits  than 
ever  before  in  the  history  of  this,  or  any  other,  coun- 
try. Had  unorganized  labor  on  the  farms  during  the 
last  ten  years  received  the  same  consideration  that 
organized  labor  in  our  industries  has  received,  and  had 
marketing  conditions  been  one  half  as  favorable  as  in 
any  European  country,  "  Meatless  and  Wheatless 
Days "  would  have  been  absolutely  unnecessary  — 
even  if  the  war  continued  indefinitely  —  and  food 
prices  vastly  lower. 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  8l 

How  is  it  that  such  conditions  can  exist  and  the 
public  is  so  misled  concerning  them  ?  There  are  many 
reasons.  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  potent  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  six  out  of  every  ten  business  and  pro- 
fessional men,  including  bankers  and  salary  earners, 
and  an  army  of  farmers  and  wage  earners,  are  directly 
interested  in  land  speculation.  Hence,  it  is  prac- 
tically impossible  to  secure  publicity  of  anything  that 
tends  to  check  the  boom,  or  that  might  bring  a  reces- 
sion of  land  prices.  The  United  States  Department 
of  Agriculture,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
has  seldom  seemed  entirely  insensible  to  such  influ- 
ences. As  an  illustration :  Some  time  since,  this  De- 
partment prepared  a  bulletin.  No.  41,  the  ostensible 
purpose  of  which  was  to  show  the  net  earning  capacity 
—  incidentally  the  intrinsic  value  —  of  the  farm  lands 
throughout  the  country.  The  result,  if  not  the  object, 
of  the  bulletin  seemed  to  have  been  chiefly  to  help  the 
land  boom. 

To  make  this  investigation,  they  claim  to  have  taken 
a  large  number  of  farms  in  three  different  States 
(average  representative  farms,  of  course;  otherwise, 
the  investigation  would  have  been  meaningless)  and 
from  these  deduced  facts  bearing  upon  the  question  of 
farm  products  (incidentally,  farm  land  values).  A 
discussion  of  this  in  detail  is  unnecessary.  A  few 
facts  and  figures  will  suffice.  The  first  factors  in  the 
problem,  of  course,  would  be  the  yield  per  acre  and  the 
price  of  the  leading  cereals  that  year  throughout  the 
country.     These  were  as  follows : 


82  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM 

Table  No.  3 
U.  S.  Department  of 

Agriculture  Reports :  Presumably  as  used 

(Average  yield  same  year)  in  the  Bulletin : 

Wheat  yield   12.5'  bu.  18.9  bu. 

Corn  yield  23.9  bu.  48.3  bu. 

Oats  yield 24.4  bu.  40.3  bu. 

Table  No.  35^ 
(Page  36,  Bulletin  41,  U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture) 

COMPARISON  OF  CROP  YIELDS  ON  OWNER  AND 

TENANT   FARMS   IN   INDIANA,   ILLINOIS, 

AND  IOWA 

Yield  per  Acre  (Bushels) 
State  Corn  Oats  Wheat 

Owner  Tenant  Owner  Tenant  Owner  Tenant 

Indiana    52.5        52.2        47.8        45,5        19.5        19.0 

Illinois    54.S        52.2        38.2        39.7        17.4        15.4 

Iowa   37.9        36.4        34.9        32.6        19.7        16.8 


Average   48.3       46.9       40.3        39.3        18.9        17.  i 

From  which  it  will  be  observed  that  in  the  problem, 
as  shown  by  the  bulletin,  the  yield  of  wheat  is  50  per 
cent,  above  normal  average ;  yield  of  corn  100  per  cent, 
above  the  normal  average ;  and  oats  66  per  cent,  above 
the  normal  average.  Again,  the  amount  of  the  essen- 
tial food  elements  taken  from  the  soil  by  these  crops 
was  not  taken  into  consideration.  Three  of  these  ele- 
ments —  potash,  nitrogen  and  phosphorus  —  are  staple 
commercial  commodities,  and  at  pre-war  prices,  the 
amount  taken  from  the  soil  by  each  bushel  of  grain, 
as  shown  by  Table  No.  4,  is  as  follows : 

Table  No.  4 

Bushel  of  corn   $.1665 

Bushel  of  wheat    2358 

Bushel  of  oats    1119 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  83 

The  net  result  of  this  investigation  was  to  show  that 
even  at  these  inflated  figures,  there  was  a  return  of 
only  3J^  per  cent,  of  die  money  invested  by  farm 
owners,  or  three  to  three  and  a  half  dollars  per  acre. 
Changing  no  other  figures,  but  reducing  the  yield  to 
be  in  keeping  with  the  average  yield  reported  by  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  itself,  it  would  reduce  the 
yield  of  corn  50  per  cent. ;  the  yield  of  wheat  34  per 
cent.;  and  the  yield  of  oats  39  per  cent.;  and  would 
show  that  instead  of  receiving  an  income,  the  farmer 
was  paying  from  $3  to  $4  per  acre  and  taxes  for  the 
privilege  of  using  his  own  land.  Waiving  the  ques- 
tion of  yield,  but  deducting  the  value  of  the  plant  food 
elements  taken  from  the  soil  by  the  three  cereals 
named,  it  would  show  that  the  farmer  must  still  pay 
$3  to  $5  per  acre  and  taxes  for' the  use  of  his  land. 
In  short,  correcting  figures  as  to  yield  and  making  due 
allowance  for  soil  elements  removed,  their  experi- 
ment would  show  that  the  farmer  is  actually  paying 
from  $4  to  $6  at  least  per  acre  rent  upon  his  own 
land. 

In  response  to  an  inquiry  why  this  element  of  soil 
depreciation  was  omitted,  a  letter  from  the  Department 
of  Agriculture  said,  "If  we  would  deduct  the  value 
of  these  elements,  we  would  soon  reach  a  point  where 
land  would  be  valued  at  a  very  low  price."  A  most 
astounding  admission.  In  substance,  that  in  solving 
scientific  problems  of  far-reaching  importance  in  the 
greatest  of  all  our  industries,  the  United  States  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  must  reach  desired  or  precon- 
ceived conclusions,  even  if  vital  facts  be  omitted  to  do 
so.     The  Department  did  not  seem  to  know  whether 


V*  ^ 


84  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

lands  were  surveyed,  grain  measured,  or  both  simply 
estimated. 

Table  No.  5 
FERTILITY  IN  FARM  PRODUCE,  APPROXIMATE  MAXI- 
MUM AMOUNTS  REMOVABLE  PER  ACRE  ANNUALLY 
Produce  Pounds  Market  Value 

£c  kl  k%      2c     kl     ig       1^1 


Kind  Amounts   .hCoSiSn       ^^, 


O  J5        +->  3  ^-j  rt 


^'^£^;S*^  g'^^  g'^^  (£'-  H> 

Corn,  grain..  100 Bu.  100  17  19  $i5-0O  $.51  $1.14  $16.65' 

Corn  stover..      3 T.  48  6  52  7.20  .18  3.12  10.50 

Corn  crop 148  23  71  22.20  .69  4.26  27.15 

Oats,   grain..  100  Bu.  66  11  16  9.90  .33  .96  11. 19 

Oat    straw...  2^  T.  31  5  52  4.65  .15  3-i2  7.92 

Oat  crop 97  16  68  14.55  48  4.08  19.11 

Wheat,    grain    50  Bu.  71  12  13  10.65  .36  .78  11.79 

Wheat    straw  2^/2  T.  25  4  45  3.75  .12  2.70  6.57 

Wheat    crop 96  16  5^  14.40  .48  3.48  18.36 

Soy   beans...     25  Bu.  80  13  24  12.00  .39  1.44  13.83 
Soy  bean 

straw   2^  T.  79  8  49  11.85  .24  2,94  15.03 

Professor  Hopkins  says,  "  The  figures  given  in  this 
table  are  based  upon  averages  of  large  numbers  of 
analyses  of  normal  products,  of  which  some  have 
been  made  by  the  author  and  his  associates,  and  many 
others  by  various  chemists  in  America  and  Europe. 
These  averages  are  trustworthy."  .  .  .  "  On  the 
whole,  however,  it  is  as  nearly  correct  to  say  that  a 
fifty-bushel  crop  of  wheat  requires  96  pounds  of  ni- 
trogen and  16  pounds  of  phosphorus  as  it  is  to  say  that 
a  measured  bushel  of  wheat  weighs  60  pounds." 

With  an  object  lesson  of  soil  robbery,  extending 
along  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  from  the  Carolinas  to  the 
Canadian  lines,  resulting  in  wholesale  farm  abandon- 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  85 

ment,  it  would  seem  that  no  opportunity  should  be 
missed  to  emphasize  this  danger,  and  to  impress  such 
facts  upon  the  farmers  of  America,  to  the  end  that 
they  should  not  allow  such  a  disastrous  practice  to  be 
repeated  in  our  younger  States. 

The  most  highly  desirable  class  of  farmers  is  fast 
disappearing.  Though  in  the  foreign-born  (Slavs, 
Sicilians,  Greeks,  et  ai),  who  are  taking  their  places, 
there  are  great  potentialities  for  good,  great  possibili- 
ties for  citizenship  in  the  future,  they  will  not,  in  a 
generation,  if  un- Americanized,  be  qualified  to  pass 
upon  those  intricate  and  momentous  post-war  ques- 
tions which  must  be  met.  These  immigrants  are  in- 
clined to  settle  in  colonies,  each  of  its  own  nationality. 
Unless  there  remain  in  each  community  at  least  a  few 
intelligent,  forceful  Americans,  alien  language,  habits 
and  traditions  will  prevail,  and  it  will  require  genera- 
tions to  assimilate  and  Americanize  this  foreign  mass. 
The  forceful  and  intelligent  American  will  not  remain 
on  the  farm  under  present  economic  conditions.  He 
can  do  better  in  other  vocations. 

In  passing,  I  would  remark  that  a  land  boom  was 
the  last  boom  —  the  one  just  preceding  every  great 
panic  in  the  history  of  this  country. 

The  intelligent  farmer  is  conscious  of  the  fact  that 
if  he  had  tilled,  and  used  for  his  vegetable  garden  and 
home,  one  acre,  instead  of  trying  to  till  i6o  acres,  and 
had  worked  for  others  at  30  cents  per  hour,  the  labors 
of  himself  and  family  would  have  been  less  arduous, 
their  cares  infinitely  less,  and  the  net  financial  results 
greater  than  are  now  his. 

Our  country  has  dire  need  of  the  farmers'  products 


86  THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

—  it  has  greater  need  of  the  farmer.  If  during  the 
economic  and  social  disturbances  (world-wide)  which 
must  follow  this  war,  we  cannot  depend  upon  the  sane, 
fair  judgment  of  the  American  farmers  —  that  largest 
and  most  intelligent  class  of  manual  laborers  the  sun 
ever  shone  upon  —  Bolshevism  in  America  is  more 
than  a  possibility. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

An  American  orator  once  spoke  of  "  that  corporate 
courage  which  drives  the  coward  to  a  valorous  deed." 
By  the  same  token,  we  have  in  this  country  to-day  a 
corporate  cowardice  which  prompts  men  to  stand 
aghast  at  the  criticism  of  any  pubHc  man,  no  odds  how 
inefficient;  or  a  suggested  change  or  betterment  of  any 
measure,  no  odds  how  ineffective;  and  they  are  ready 
to  cry  out,  **  Disloyal,  etc." —  when  constructive  sug- 
gestions are  made  by  the  most  loyal  citizens.  Among 
these  good  citizens  are  scattered  the  worst  enemies  of 
the  republic  —  profiteers,  grafters  and  men  who  re- 
joice at  everything  that  tends  to  defeat  the  nation's 
purpose  in  this  great  struggle  for  human  liberty. 

This  influence  is  apparent  in  nearly  every  gathering 
of  farmers.  To  illustrate:  In  a  state  meeting  of 
farmers  at  Omaha,  some  months  ago,  it  was  admitted 
that  following  the  price  fixing  of  wheat,  the  acreage  of 
winter  wheat  sown  in  the  State  was  reduced  to  25 
per  cent,  below  the  normal  average.  A  resolution  was 
suggested,  calling  the  attention  of  Congress  to  the  fact 
that  the  low  price  fixed  upon  wheat  was  so  out  of 
proportion  to  the  price  of  other  commodities  —  cotton, 
labor,  etc., —  that  it  would  result  in  reduced  production 
of  that  cereal,  just  at  a  time  when  war  necessities  must 
greatly  increase  the  demand.  This  suggestion  was  met 
with  shouts,  insinuating  lack  of  patriotism,  etc.,  and  a 

87 


88  THE    FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

resolution  promptly  passed  that  would  lead  Congress  to 
believe  that  the  price  fixed  upon  wheat  was  entirely  sat- 
isfactory. 

The  real  feeling  of  the  farmers  of  Nebraska  was 
reflected  in  the  output  of  wheat  for  that  year  of  13,- 
764,000  bushels  as  against  an  annual  average  output 
of  69,428,000  bushels  during  the  three  years  previous 
(see  1917  "  Red  Book,"  page  50) ;  and  is  further  re- 
flected by  the  estimated  yield  of  43,000,000  bushels 
—  both  spring  and  winter  wheat — for  19 18.  Un- 
favorable conditions  had  something  to  do  with  the 
reduction  of  output  for  19 17,  but  if  the  acreage  had 
been  stimulated  to  25  per  cent,  above  normal,  instead 
of  being  depressed  to  25  per  cent,  below  normal,  the 
increase  in  bread  stuffs  would  have  been  50  per  cent, 
to  100  per  cent,  to  be  added  to  the  total  amount  saved 
by  the  strenuous  and  able  efforts  of  the  Food  Adminis- 
trator of  the  State  of  Nebraska. 

As  Nebraska  has  gone  "  Over  the  Top  "  in  sub- 
scriptions for  Liberty  Bonds,  Thrift  Stamps,  Y.  M. 
C.  A.,  and  every  other  war  enterprise,  including  vol- 
unteers, the  charge  of  disloyalty  will  not  lie. 

The  above  is  an  example  of  how  both  in  private  and 
public  assemblages  expressions  and  suggestions,  which 
would  have  been  valuable  to  the  Administration  and 
Congress,  and  might  have  rendered  some  of  the  fla- 
grant abuses  impossible,  have  been  prevented.  Why 
should  not  the  criticisms  and  suggestions  from  intelli- 
gent citizens  be  heard,  even  if  the  most  of  these  are 
erroneous,  or  of  little  value?  In  France  and  England 
such  criticisms  and  suggestions  have  been  heard  and 
heeded,  and  resulted  in  a  very  marked  improvement 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  89 

in  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  Because  of  it,  weak 
generals  have  been  replaced  by  stronger  ones;  ineffi- 
cient officials  by  abler  men.  One,  who  was  among  the 
highest  officials  in  the  French  nation,  at  the  time  war 
was  declared,  is  now  in  prison,  awaiting  trial  for  trea- 
son. Few,  if  any,  of  these  desirable  results  would 
have  been  so  speedily  brought  about  had  criticisms  and 
suggestions  been  throttled.  Why  should  we  not  bene- 
fit by  their  experience? 

No  one  is  more  heartily  in  favor  of  punishment, 
swift  and  sure,  for  every  one  guilty  of  treason,  than 
I ;  but  that  a  self -constituted  class  of  patriots  are  per- 
mitted to  assail  any  individual  who  disagrees  with 
them,  any  class  that  does  not  conform  to  their  par- 
ticular ideas  of  Government  or  personal  conduct,  is 
not  in  keeping  with  the  American  spirit  of  liberty. 
If  the  officers  of  our  Government,  high  or  low,  ever 
cease  to  be  the  servants,  and  become  the  masters,  of 
our  people,  the  spirit  of  democracy  will  die  within  us. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

Professor  Liebig,  then  an  obscure  chemist,  now 
known  as  the  "  Father  of  Agricultural  Chemistry,"  in 
his  homemade  laboratory  in  Giessen,  delved  deeper 
into  the  secrets  of  plant  life  than  his  predecessors.  In 
1834,  he  published  to  the  world  the  results  of  his  re- 
search. Briefly  stated,  these  were  that  all  plants  and 
foods  contain  definite  and  fixed  amounts  of  certain 
chemical  elements;  chiefest  among  these  being  phos- 
phorus, potash  and  nitrogen;  that  these  were  obtained 
through  the  plant  from  the  soil.  That  in  time  by  con- 
tinued cropping  the  plants  would  exhaust  the  meager 
soil  supply  of  these  elements,  and  unless  they  were, 
by  the  hand  of  man,  replaced,  the  soil  would  ultimately 
become  worthless.  Hence,  soil  feeding  was  an  im- 
perative necessity  if  the  limited  areas  of  tillable  land 
in  civilized  countries  continued  to  supply  proper  food 
for  the  constantly  increasing  inhabitants. 

The  leaders  of  agriculture  in  England,  France,  Aus- 
tria, Italy,  Germany,  and  nearly  all  other  countries, 
accepted  and  acted  upon  these  theories  with  marked 
improvements  in  the  agriculture  of  each.  Naturally 
his  own  country  was  the  first  to  adopt  Liebig's  theo- 
ries and  put  them  into  practical  execution.  The  re- 
sults in  the  increased  yield  of  cereals  per  acre  on  four 
German  estates  are  shown  in  Table  No.  6.  Contrast 
with  these  Table  No.  7,  showing  the  decreasing  yields 
per  acre  in  the  State  of  Kansas. 

go 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  QI 

Table  No.  6 
Years  Wheat        Rye      Barley      Oats 

"  A "    /1830    18.7  21.2  35.6  46.2 

■|i  897  to  1904 46.1  34.  50.4  69.1 

«g.,      ri825  to  1834 21.04  21.63  30.19  31.85 

Li 900  to  1904 36.14  32.52  43.23  57.80 

„^„      fi 830  to  1840 18.82  15.04  16.37  13.86 

^       I1885  to  1894 35.70  29.52  41.06  43.96 

Showing  average  yields  per  acre  and  at  different 
periods  on  three  German  estates,  numbered  "  A,"  "  B  " 
and  "  C  "  respectively,  and  the  increased  yield  secured 
by  application  of  scientific  principles,  business  methods 
and  intelligently  directed  labor. 

Table  No.  7 
AVERAGE  YIELD   PER  ACRE,   STATE  OF  KANSAS 
1860-1889         1889-1908  Decrease 

Crop                        (Bu.)                (Bu.)  (Percent) 

Corn   34.2                    21.6  36.9 

Wheat   15.3                   II.8  22.8 

Oats   32.8                  21.9  32.2 

Professor  J.  W.  Spillman,  of  the  United  States 
Bureau  of  Plant  Industry,  in  referring  to  Table  No. 
7,  is  quoted  as  saying  in  Hoard's  Dairyman  of  May 
14,  1909,  "  These  figures  are  in  general  agreement 
with  the  data  from  other  sections  of  the  country." 

Ignoring  all  this,  certain  men  in  the  Federal  De- 
partment of  Agriculture,  some  fifteen  to  eighteen  years 
ago,  began  to  combat  the  theory  advanced  by  Pro- 
fessor Liebig,  as  well  as  by  the  managers  of  the 
Rothamsted  farms  in  England  (where  scientific  agri- 
cultural experiments  have  been  continued  for  nearly 
a  century),  and  others,  claiming  to  have  had  made  a 


92  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

great  discovery;  viz.,  that  lands  that  were  worn  out 
and  had  become  worthless  had  not  done  so  because  the 
food  elements  therein  had  been  exhausted ;  but  because 
certain  plants,  called  weeds,  exuded  or  exhaled  certain 
substances,  deleterious,  if  not  poisonous,  to  other 
plants,  and  especially  to  those  plants  chiefly  propagated 
for  human  food.  To  illustrate:  Professor  Hopkins 
in  the  work  referred  to  quotes  from  Bulletin  No.  22, 
Bureau  of  Soils,  United  States  Department  of  Agri- 
culture :  "  It  appears  further  that  practically  all  soils 
contain  sufficient  plant  food  for  good  crop  yields,  that 
this  supply  will  be  indefinitely  maintained."  Pro- 
fessor Hopkins  again  quotes  as  from  Bulletin  55,  Bu- 
reau of  Soils  (Soils  of  the  United  States,  February, 
1909),  as  follows:  "The  soil  is  the  one  indestructi- 
ble, immutable  asset  that  the  nation  possesses.  It  is 
the  one  resource  that  cannot  be  exhausted;  that  can- 
not be  used  up,  etc."  He  further  quotes  from  a  hear- 
ing before  the  Congressional  Committee  on  Agricul- 
ture, 1908,  in  which  a  representative,  Mr.  Cameron, 
of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  is  questioned  as 
follows : 

The  Chairman.  "  Then  I  come  back  again  to  the 
question.  Why  is  it  necessary,  or  is  it  in  your  judgment 
necessary,  ever  at  any  time  to  introduce  fertilizing 
material  into  any  soil  for  the  purpose  of  increasing 
the  amount  of  plant  food  in  that  soil." 
Mr.  Cameron.  "  Not  in  my  judgment." 
In  view  of  facts  disclosed  by  the  foregoing  tables, 
and  with  the  history  and  present  condition  of  agricul- 
ture in  India,  China  and  elsewhere,  as  well  as  what 
has  taken  place  all  along  our  Atlantic  Coast,  it  seems 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  93 

almost  unbelievable  that  the  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture should  have  put  itself  on  record  as  discouraging 
the  American  farmer  from  doing  all  possible  toward 
maintaining  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  and  especially  any 
of  those  things  which  science,  as  well  as  all  human 
experience,  has  so  clearly  pointed  out  as  being  neces- 
sary. If  instead  of  this  discouragement,  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  had  impressed  upon  the  American 
farmer  some  of  the  facts  disclosed  in  Tables  Nos.  5 
and  8;  viz.,  that  when  he  burned  the  straw  and  stub- 
ble from  his  grain  fields  he  was,  in  these  indispensable 
food  elements,  destroying  what  would  cost  him  from 
$2.50  to  $3  per  acre  to  replace;  that  when  he  burned 
his  stalk  field,  instead  of  plowing  it  under,  he  was 
losing,  in  soil  elements,  what  would  cost  him  from  $3 
to  $4  to  replace,  and  besides  these  a  vast  amount  of 
humus,  indispensable  in  putting  these  elements  into 
solution,  thus  making  them  available  as  plant  food. 
If  farmers  had  been  impressed  with  these  facts,  do 
you  think  that  for  the  last  twenty  years,  our  prairies 
would,  for  weeks,  be  lighted  up  with  burning  stubble 
fields,  stock  fields  and  straw  stacks,  and  our  average 
grain  yields  per  acre  constantly  decreasing?  This 
waste  is  preventable.  It  simply  comes  from  lack  of 
knowledge  that  should,  and  could,  easily  have  been 
furnished  by  the  Department  of  Agriculture  and  the 
Agricultural  Educational  Institutions. 

In  i860,  we  had  upon  our  lands  the  most  intelligent 
and  industrious  farmers  that  ever  tilled  the  earth. 
From  the  Alleghanies  west,  it  was  then  practically  a 
virgin  soil;  so  the  appalling  contrast  in  yields  per 
acre  can  only  be  accounted  for  in  the  methods  of 


94  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

agriculture,  and  as  we  are  paying,  and  have  been 
paying,  ever  increasing  millions  annually  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Federal  Department  of  Agriculture, 
scores  of  the  State  Universities,  Agricultural  Schools 
and  Colleges,  these  institutions  are,  in  a  very  large 
degree,  responsible.  For  in  addition  to  scientific  re- 
search and  information,  it  was  their  manifest  duty  to 
keep  both  Congress  and  the  public  advised  as  to  the 
labor  situation  and  marketing  conditions  affecting 
agriculture,  for  the  betterment  of  which  they  were 
created  and  are  maintained. 

Table  No.  8,  made  from  the  1914  Year  Book,  show- 
ing the  average  yields  per  acre  of  leading  cereals  in 
our  own,  and  European  countries,  since  1900,  is  evi- 
dence that  this  appalling  tendency  continues.  As 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of  old,  worn-out  lands 
throughout  the  East,  during  these  fourteen  years,  have 
been  abandoned,  and  in  the  West  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  virgin  soil  been  brought  into  cultiva- 
tion, and  as  European  lands  have  been  worked  for  a 
thousand  years,  conditions  are  worse  even  than  those 
indicated  by  tables. 

Table  No.  8 

AVERAGE  YIELD  PER  ACRE  OF  UNITED  STATES  AND 

EUROPEAN  COUNTRIES  1890-1914 

Barley  Wheat  Oats  Rye 

United   States   24.9  14.8  29.5'  16. i 

Germany    37-1  30.7  54-0  27.4 

Russia    ISO  lo.o  18.0  12.0 

France    24.1  20.1  31.1  16.9 

Hungary    24.6  19.0  31.5  18.3 

United  Kingdom    35.5  334  43-5  29.1 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  95 

To  show  that  I  do  not  stand  alone  in  my  opinion  of 
the  wonderful  theory  advanced  by  the  Department  of 
Agriculture,  I  would  refer  you  to  pages  339  and  340 
in  "  Soil  Fertility  and  Permanent  Agriculture,'*  in 
which  it  will  be  seen  that  in  a  canvass  of  104  agricul- 
tural chemists,  agronomists,  professors  of  agriculture, 
soil  specialists,  etc.,  but  two  were  found  willing  to 
endorse  these  theories,  and,  as  quoted,  "  These  two 
are  from  minor  or  branch  institutions,  however,  not 
one  of  the  Land-grant  Colleges  or  State  Experiment 
Stations  being  willing  to  accept  or  teach  them  in  the 
sense  in  which  they  have  been  put  forward  by  the  Bu- 
reau." 

Where  is  the  fault,  and  what  the  remedy?  There 
is,  I  think,  no  grounds  for  suspicion  of  fraud  or  prof- 
iteering either  in  the  Department  of  Agriculture  or  the 
Agricultural  Institutions  throughout  the  land.  In  all 
of  these  are  many  earnest  and  able  scientific  men, 
whose  research  and  experiments  should  be  of  inestima- 
ble value  to  agriculture ;  but  those  directing  the  affairs 
of  these  institutions  have  seemingly  failed  to  appreci- 
ate the  seriousness  of  their  work,  the  enormously  im- 
portant part  that  they  should  play  in  the  economic,  as 
well  as  the  e very-day  life,  of  the  nation.  Hence,  they 
have  permitted  inefficients,  impractical  theorists,  fad- 
dists and  sensationalists  to  occupy  too  prominent  a 
part  in  these  institutions.  Since  commercial  and  po- 
litical interests  began  to  look  upon  these  institutions 
simply  as  organizations,  "  going  concerns,"  which  they 
could  use  to  pecuniary  and  political  advantage,  these 
ills  have  multiplied.  Congress  is  not  blameless  in  fail- 
ing to  observe  and  correct  these  evil  tendencies.     An 


96  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

extended  discussion  of  this  phase  of  the  subject  is  not 
permissible  in  this  volume.  I  would,  therefore,  refer 
the  reader  to  "  Soil  Fertility  and  Permanent  Agricul- 
ture," by  Professor  Cyril  G.  Hopkins,  to  whom  I  am 
indebted  for  much  scientific  data,  including  some  of 
the  tables  herein. 

In  other  directions,  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
and  these  Agricultural  Institutions  are  derelict.  Why 
has  there  not  been  a  loud-voiced  protest  from  these 
institutions,  whose  business  it  was  to  know  the  soil 
needs,  to  Congress  against  the  enormous  waste  of  ma- 
nure at  the  Stock  Yards  in  our  packing  centers? 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  tons  of  the  best  possible 
manure,  at  all  of  these  Stock  Yards,  are  annually  al- 
lowed to  waste  in  the  sun  and  rain,  and  to  be  washed 
into  specially  constructed  sewers,  and  to  be  burned  in 
incinerators  built  for  that  purpose.  None  of  this 
should  be  wasted.  While  one  for  years  has  been  able 
to  secure  freight  rates  on  commercial  fertilizers  to 
the  most  obscure  station,  at  many  stations  in  the  vicin- 
ities of  the  packing  centers,  it  is  impossible  to  secure 
any  rates  at  all  on  stock  yard  manures.  If  to  any, 
usually  at  rates  that  are  prohibitive.  As  the  first 
profits  from  an  increased  tonnage  of  grain  and  other 
food  stuffs  goes  to  the  transportation  companies 
(  freight  rates  must  be  deducted  before  a  dollar  is  paid 
on  any  commodity),  they  can  afford  to  make  an  ex- 
ceedingly low  rate  on  transporting  this  much  needed 
fertilizer  to  the  farming  communities,  and  now  that 
our  Government  is  operating  the  railroads,  I  see  no 
reason  why  a  movement  in  this  direction  should  not 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  97 

immediately  be  made.  As  the  great  majority  of  all 
the  cars  bringing  live  stock  to  the  packing  centers  go 
back  empty,  the  cost  of  transporting  the  Stock  Yard 
manure  to  the  country  would  be  nominal.  It  is  valu- 
able as  a  fertilizer,  not  only  because  of  the  food  ele- 
ments contained,  but  for  the  humus,  for  the  lack  of 
which  many  soils,  and  especially  those  of  the  "  loess 
deposit,"  are  suffering. 

As  evidence  that  these  tendencies  toward  soil  de- 
preciation and  decreasing  yields  of  grain  still  continue, 
and  that  many  thinking  men  view  the  situation  with 
alarm,  I  quote  from  a  speech  delivered  by  Hon.  Car- 
roll S.  Page,  of  Vermont,  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
July  24,  19 1 6. 

"  Within  the  last  thirty  years  Germany  has  in- 
creased her  production  of  rye  from  15  to  29  bushels, 
the  United  States  from  14  to  16  bushels;  Germany  in- 
creased her  production  of  wheat  from  19  to  30  bush- 
els, the  United  States  from  13  to  15  bushels;  Germany 
increased  her  production  of  barley  from  24  to  39  bush- 
els, the  United  States  from  24  to  24.3  bushels;  Ger- 
many increased  her  production  of  oats  from  31  to  59 
bushels,  the  United  States  from  28  to  30  bushels; 
Germany  increased  her  production  of  potatoes  from 
115  to  208  bushels,  the  United  States  98  to  100 
bushels. 

"  This  statement  is  so  full  of  meat  that  I  wish  to 
give  to  the  Senate  these  figures  in  percentages : 

"The  German  increase  in  rye  in  30  years  was  87 
per  cent.,  the  United  States  10  per  cent. ;  in  wheat  58 
per  cent.,  the  United  States  14  per  cent.;  in  barley, 


98  THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

60  per  cent.,  the  United  States  i  per  cent. ;  in  oats  85 
per  cent.,  the  United  States  6  per  cent. ;  in  potatoes  80 
per  cent.,  the  United  States  7  per  cent. 

"  Mr.  President,  Germany  has  an  area  equal  only  to 
the  three  States  of  Minnesota,  Iowa,  and  Missouri, 
but  she  produced  three-fifths  as  much  oats,  four-fifths 
as  much  barley,  three  times  as  much  sugar,  six  times 
as  many  potatoes,  and  nine  times  as  much  rye  as  we 
produced  in  the  whole  United  States. 

"  Let  me  state  it  in  another  way.  In  1907  Ger- 
many had  43,000,000  acres  sowed  with  wheat,  barley, 
oats,  and  potatoes.  She  harvested  therefrom  3,000,- 
000,000  bushels.  We  had  under  cultivation  88,500,- 
000  acres  —  more  than  twice  as  many  acres  as  Ger- 
many—  and  sowed  the  same  crop.  The  American 
farmer  harvested  only  1,875,000,000  bushels.  In 
other  words,  from  less  than  one-half  the  acreage 
Germany  harvested  nearly  double  the  number  of  bush- 
els that  we  did. 

"If  from  the  land  we  devoted  to  oats,  barley,  and 
potatoes  the  American  farmer  had  produced  the  same 
per  acre  as  was  produced  in  Germany,  we  should  have 
been  richer  by  $1,400,000,000  annually." 

The  most  practical  way  to  rejuvenate  the  soil  of  an 
old  farm  in  the  Central  West  is  with  a  treatment  of 
ground  rock  phosphate  and  crushed  lime  stone.  In 
amounts  used  most  economically,  these  materials  cost 
from  $25  to  $30  per  acre,  and  as  this  treatment  must 
be  repeated  at  least  once  in  five  years  —  about  $5  to 
$6  per  acre  per  annum.  Hence,  if  each  farmer  has 
$100  per  acre  of  his  land  to  invest,  it  would  require 
the  interest  on  same  to  keep  the  farm  approximately 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  99 

Up  to  virgin  fertility.  On  soils  where  potash  is  also 
needed,  a  liberal  addition  to  cost  of  this  must  be  added. 
To  all  these  must  be  added  barn-yard  manure  and 
frequent  clover  crops.  As  the  clover  adds  little,  or 
nothing,  to  the  soil,  unless  plowed  under,  and  as  the 
clover  is  a  biennial  crop  and  must  be  sown  every  two 
years;  as  good  clean  seed  costs  from  $9  to  $12  per 
bushel ;  the  young  plants  frequently  Winter  kill  before 
making  any  return ;  and  the  hay  plowed  under  is  worth 
from  $8  to  $12  per  ton;  this  additional  fertilizing  is 
expensive. 

The  above  shows  what  the  lost  soil  elements  were 
worth  —  what  soil  depreciation  really  means  to  the 
farmer.  These  things  also,  incidentally,  show  that 
an  abundance  of  intelligently  directed  labor  is  indis- 
pensable to  successful  farming. 

I  believe  in  conservation  and  approve  every  rational 
step  taken  in  that  direction,  but  in  food  stuffs,  it  is, 
at  the  utmost,  measured  by  what  the  American  people 
will  deny  themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  a  properly 
stimulated  increased  production  has  practically  no 
limit,  certainly  it  would  go  far  beyond  the  possible 
needs  of  our  armies,  our  Allies  and  our  own  people. 

Had  German  agriculture  —  acreage  yield  —  been 
no  better  than  American  agriculture,  the  British  and 
French  armies  would  have  long  since  marched  on  to 
Berlin,  needing  no  other  allies  than  hunger  and  want 
among  the  German  people.  Had  French  agriculture 
been  no  better  than  our  own,  she  could  not  have  con- 
tinued the  war  for  a  single  year  after  the  submarine 
campaign  was  inaugurated.  So  that  the  present  war 
necessities  and   future  preparedness  both  demand  a 


lOO  THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

tremendous  increase  in  our  production  of  food  stuffs. 

But  waiving  these,  many  are  of  the  opinion  that 
but  for  the  war,  a  farm  mortgage  foreclosure  era 
would  ere  this  have  been  in  full  swing,  with  its  inevi- 
table accompaniments  of  depression  and  panic.  Since 
the  sub-sea  warfare  began,  vast  amounts  of  wheat  and 
other  cereals  have  been,  and  are,  accumulating  in  In- 
dia, Australia,  Argentina  and  elsewhere.  In  Austra- 
lia, Argentina  and  other  South  American  countries, 
flocks  and  herds  have  been  multiplying  at  a  constantly 
increasing  ratio.  Many  think  that  when  peace  comes, 
these  vast  accumulations  of  human  foods  will  be 
thrown  upon  the  European  market.  That  the  im- 
poverishment of  the  masses  of  Europe  must  continue 
to  keep  consumption  at  the  minimum,  resulting  in 
such  a  radical  depression  of  prices,  that  because  of 
their  tremendous  burden  of  indebtedness,  the  Amer- 
ican farmers  will  be  crushed  under  this  competition, 
and  disastrous  consequences  follow.  Such  a  crisis  can 
only  be  averted  by  prices  that  will,  during  the  war, 
enable  the  American  farmers  to  reduce  their  indebted- 
ness, so  that  they  may  be  able  to  meet  the  emergency 
and  stem  the  tide.  Hence,  from  every  point  of  view, 
one  can  see  the  imperative  demand  for  "The  Better- 
ment of  Agriculture." 

Inaccurate  and  inflated  estimates,  sophomorical 
treatises  on  husbandry  and  oratorical  dissertations  on 
the  farmers'  patriotism,  rather  hinder  than  help  in 
this  direction.  War  profits  to  the  farmer,  or  the  lack 
of  them,  are  reflected  by  a  statement  just  received 
from  the  State  Auditor,  whose  official  duty  it  is  to 
secure  and  publish  these  statistics,  which  shows  that 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS    A^D   AMERICANISM  lOI 

the  increase  in  the  farm  mortgage  indebtedness  in  Ne- 
braska, during  the  year  191 7,  was  $29,755,109.14,  as 
compared  with  an  increase  of  the  farm  mortgage  in- 
debtedness for  1906  of  $8,092,336.48;  in  1907  of 
$10,074,881.70;  and  in  1908  of  $9,707,244.64;  with 
nothing  Hke  an  adequate  increase  of  the  farmers'  as- 
sets. In  my  opinion,  on  account  of  high  cost  of  ma- 
terial and  scarcity  of  labor,  less  than  the  usual  amount 
of  farm  improvements  was  made  in  19 17.  As  I  have 
shown,  the  increased  selling  price  of  land  is  of  no 
value  from  either  the  standpoint  of  national  econom- 
ics, or  that  of  the  real  farmer. 


CHAPTER  XX 

As  an  illustration  of  the  futility  of  attempting  to 
reach  reliable  or  accurate  facts  from  estimates  made 
by  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  or  any  one  else,  I 
would  say  that  in  the  June  number  of  The  Farmers' 
Open  Forum  J  Mr.  George  Creel,  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Public  Information,  has  an  article  in  which 
he  attempts  to  prove  that  under  the  government  fixed 
prices,  wheat  has  advanced  at  a  greater  ratio  than  com. 

In  reaching  this  conclusion  he  says,  "  The  figures 
collected  by  the  Department  of  Agriculture  show  that 
the  average  prices  received  by  the  farmer  during  the 
three  years  previous  to  the  War  were,  roughly,  86.9 
cents  a  bushel  for  wheat  and  66.5  cents  for  corn." 
With  these  figures  as  a  basis,  he  proceeds  to  show  that 
"  the  increase  over  the  pre-war  prices  has  been  131 
per  cent,  in  the  case  of  wheat  and  only  109  per  cent, 
in  the  case  of  corn." 

The  figures  in  Table  No.  9  are  taken  from  the  De- 
cember, 19 1 7,  number  of  "Our  Red  Book" — Sta- 
tistical Information  — by  Howard,  Bartels  &  Co., 
Chicago.  This  publication  is,  I  think,  considered  reli- 
able and  taken  as  standard  on  statistics  of  crop  yields, 
prices,  exports,  etc. 

We  are  not  just  sure  whether  Mr.  Creel  means  the 
three  years  prior  to  our  entrance  into  war,  or  the 
three  years  prior  to  the  original  declaration  of  war 

102 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  IO3 

Table  No.  9 

YEARLY    AVERAGE    PRICES    BASED    UPON    THE 

MONTHLY  RANGE  FOR  THE  ARTICLES  NAMED 

IN  THE  CHICAGO  MARKET 

Year  Wheat  Corn 

1911  $0.98^  $0.59^ 

1912  1.045/^  0.68^ 

1913  0.95^  0.62^ 

Average    $0.9945  $0,635 

1914  $1.01^  $0.69^ 

1915  1.31K  0.72^ 

1916  1.38  0.8254 

Average    $1.2366  $0,751 

by  Germany  in  19 14.  We  assume  that  it  must  be  the 
latter.  If  so,  how  does  it  happen  that  the  "  prices  re- 
ceived by  the  farmer  during  the  three  years ''  were 
12^^  cents  per  bushel  less  than  the  Chicago  market 
price  for  wheat?  And  3  cents  per  bushel  more  than 
the  Chicago  market  price  for  corn?  Deducting  I2j4 
cents  per  bushel  from  the  Chicago  market  price  for 
com,  will  reduce  it  to  51  cents  per  bushel.  This  would 
reverse  his  findings  and  show  that  the  ratio  of  increase 
for  com  was  180  per  cent.,  instead  of  109  per  cent.,  as 
he  states.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  assume  that  it  is 
for  the  three  years  prior  to  our  entrance  into  the  war, 
it  would  show  that  the  farmer  was  getting  over  36 
cents  a  bushel  less  than  the  Chicago  prices  for  his 
wheat,  and  only  8.6  cents  per  bushel  less  than  the  Chi- 
cago prices  for  his  corn. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

No  two  rivers  in  the  civilized  world,  capable  of 
carrying  so  much  freight,  are  carrying  so  little  as  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Missouri.  To  no  communities  in 
the  whole  world  is  the  freight  item  of  such  transcend- 
ent importance  as  to  the  people  of  these  great  valleys. 

American  agriculture  is  under  a  tremendous  handi- 
cap, in  that  our  great  food  producing  areas  are  in  the 
midst  of  the  continent,  far  removed  from  tide  water, 
and  hence,  from  the  world's  markets,  where  the  prices 
of  farm  products  are  fixed.  Our  Government  must 
advance  millions  to  our  great  railway  companies  to 
meet  maintenance  and  operating  expenses.  The  peo- 
ple of  the  country  are  being  subjected  to  tremendous 
inconvenience  and  loss  for  lack  of  transportation  facili- 
ties. Why  should  not  our  Government  advance  a  few 
millions  for  steel  or  wooden  barges,  and  for  otherwise 
developing  transportation  on  these  great  waterways, 
thus  enormously  reducing  expense,  fuel  and  man- 
power along  transportation  lines,  beside  relieving  the 
freight  congestion  at  almost  every  terminal  point  ? 

When  in  Belgium,  a  few  years  ago,  I  learned  that 
though  the  Government  owned  nearly  all  of  its  rail- 
ways, it  was,  for  every  six  miles  square  of  land  (equal 
to  one  of  our  townships),  maintaining  more  than  one 
mile  of  internal  waterways.  Prominent  business  men 
there  credited  these  internal  waterways  for  Belgium's 

104 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND  AMERICANISM  IO5 

ability  successfully  to  compete  with  all  other  peoples 
in  the  world's  market  with  its  manufactured  products. 
If  Belgium,  owning  her  own  railways,  can  afford  to 
maintain  this  vast  system  of  internal  waterways,  why 
should  not  our  country  encourage  the  development  of 
our  own?  Whenever  this  subject  is  discussed  in  the 
press  or  on  the  platform,  suggestions  are  made  that 
the  railways  must  be  protected  from  water  competition. 
Why,  if  not  on  the  theory  that  the  people  were  cre- 
ated for  the  transportation  companies,  instead  of  the 
transportation  companies  for  the  people?  By  what 
power,  human  or  divine,  was  the  accruing  blessing  of 
water  transportation  bequeathed  to  a  few  people  living 
along  the  shores  and  to  the  transportation  companies  ? 

I  found  that  from  a  given  point  in  Belgium  to  any 
other  point,  whether  fifty  or  five  hundred  miles  dis- 
tant, the  freight  charges  by  water  were  not  more  than 
50  per  cent,  of  the  freight  charges  by  rail. 

On  some  stretches  of  the  Missouri  River,  companies 
with  small  capital  and  meager  equipment  are  profitably 
carrying  freight.  But  such  companies  can  never  se- 
cure sufficient  capital  permanently  to  carry  freight,  so 
long  as  there  is  a  fear  on  the  part  of  investors  that 
the  Government  may,  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past, 
permit  railway  lines,  paralleling  these  streams,  tem- 
porarily to  make  such  low  rates  as  to  bankrupt  the 
waterway  companies,  at  the  same  time  recuperating 
the  railway  losses  by  increased  rates  from  inland 
points,  and  when  the  boat  companies  are  driven  out  of 
business,  resume  original  high  rates.  Our  Govern- 
ment should  at  once  take  a  firm  stand  in  the  matter 
and  assure  the  American  people  that  all  the  rights, 


I06  THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

blessings  and  advantages  incident  to  waterway  trans- 
portation should  be  forever  secure  in  and  for  the  whole 
people,  regardless  of  how  the  development  of  these 
waterways  may  affect  the  railway  or  other  special  in- 
terests. With  this  assurance  and  small  aid  in  present 
emergency,  internal  waterway  systems  would  soon  be 
established  and  developed,  resulting  in  vast  profits  to 
the  nation. 

To  illustrate  the  discriminating  rates  in  favor  of 
lines  paralleling  waterways,  I  would  say  just  prior 
to  the  taking  over  of  the  railways  by  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, it  cost  1 1.9  cents  per  hundred  to  bring  a  car- 
load of  com  from  Grand  Island  to  Omaha — 153 
miles.  If  that  carload  of  corn  was  reshipped  to  Kan- 
sas City,  192  miles,  the  rate  would  be  only  5.5  cents 
per  hundred  (less  than  one-half  for  the  longer  than 
for  the  shorter  distance).  On  wheat  from  Grand 
Island  to  Omaha,  13.6  cents  per  hundred.  The  rate 
on  this  same  wheat  reshipped  to  Kansas  City,  5.5  cents 
per  hundred.  The  rate  on  wheat  from  Grand  Island 
to  Omaha  was  13.6  cents  per  hundred.  The  rate  on 
wheat  originating  beyond  Kansas  City  and  rebilled 
from  Kansas  City  to  Minneapolis,  558  miles,  is  12 
cents  a  hundred,  or  1.6  of  a  cent  less  per  hundred  to 
ship  it  558  miles  parallel  with  the  Missouri  River, 
than  to  ship  it  153  miles  from  a  station  in  the  midst 
of  the  grain  fields  to  Omaha.  The  rate  of  com  from 
Grand  Island  to  Omaha  is  1 1.9  cents  per  hundred.  The 
rate  of  corn  originating  in  the  grain  fields  of  Kansas, 
and  reshipped  from  Kansas  City  to  Minneapolis,  558 
miles,  is  II  cents  a  hundred,  or  .9  of  a  cent  less  per 
hundred  for  carrying  it  558  miles  paralleling  the  Mis- 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  IO7 

souri  River,  than  for  carrying  it  153  miles  from  sta- 
tions in  the  grain  fields,  on  direct  line  to  the  great 
consuming  centers,  and  the  seaboard.  Everywhere 
there  is  a  lower  rate  on  shipments  over  routes  unnec- 
essary and  without  advantage  to  the  general  public, 
than  over  routes  necessary  and  indispensable  to  the 
public  good. 

According  to  the  genius  and  spirit  of  American  com- 
mercialism and  organized  labor,  profits  should  be  made 
by  obstructing  the  interchange  of  commodities  between 
producer  and  consumer,  instead  of  by  facilitating  this 
exchange.  Is  a  people,  who  will,  without  protest,  con- 
tinue to  allow  itself  to  be  subjected  to  such  monstrous 
impositions,  worthy  of  liberty?  Or  do  they  not  need 
some  one  to  govern  them  and  protect  them  ?  Royalty, 
in  its  palmiest  days,  never  exacted  greater  or  more 
unjust  tribute  from  its  subjects. 

The  above  and  other  intolerable  practices,  common 
in  the  trade  and  transportation  of  this  country,  are  mak- 
ing for  Socialism  and  Bolshevism.  Because  of  them, 
impoverishment  of  rural  communities  and  farm  aban- 
donment were  inevitable. 

A  rich  soil;  the  adaptability  of  our  lands  to  the  use 
of  machinery;  the  inventive  genius  of  our  people;  all 
coupled  with  the  superior  intelligence  of  our  farmers, 
as  compared  with  the  peasantry  of  any  other  country, 
will  enable  them  to  successfully  compete  with  all,  if 
artificial  handicaps,  now  resting  on  American  agri- 
culture, be  removed.  The  impetus  given  to  agri- 
culture would  soon  result  in  such  a  stimulus  to  busi- 
ness in  general,  that  our  railways  would  quickly  find 
an  abundance  of   freight  to  keep  them  busy.     Five 


I08  THE    FOOD   CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

cents  a  bushel  reduction  in  freight,  and  the  same  added 
to  the  farmers'  prices  of  grain,  would,  in  twenty  years, 
pay  every  mortgage  on  all  the  farms  of  the  Corn  Belt. 

With  less  than  half  the  necessary  man-power  to  op- 
erate farms  already  in  cultivation,  the  Federal  develop- 
ment of  irrigating  systems  in  the  West  was  premature. 
Had  one-half  the  amount  of  money  invested  by  the 
Department  of  Reclamation  Service  been  expended 
upon  the  Missouri  River,  from  Kansas  City  up, 
straightening  that  stream  and  fitting  it  for  navigation, 
the  land  incidentally  reclaimed  thereby  would  have 
been  quite  as  large  in  acreage,  and  more  than  loo  per 
cent,  richer  in  fertility,  than  that  reclaimed  in  the 
mountain  districts  by  irrigation ;  the  climatic  conditions 
of  the  Missouri  Valley  make  a  greater  diversity  of 
crops  possible;  and  besides  that,  the  foodstuffs  pro- 
duced are  from  500  to  1000  miles  nearer  to  the  Seaboard 
and  our  chief  consuming  centers,  than  the  products 
from  the  irrigated  lands  are.  This  river  and  the  Mis- 
sissippi open  to  navigation,  by  reducing  freight  rates, 
would  result  in  greater  profit  to  our  farmers,  and  at 
the  same  time  lower  prices  to  the  consumer. 

The  undeveloped  irrigable  lands  are  a  national  as- 
set, which  will  keep  indefinitely.  By  erosion,  soil  ele- 
ments —  which  it  would  require  millions  to  replace  — 
are  annually  being  carried  down  the  Mississippi  and 
Missouri  Rivers,  and  dumped  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Planting  of  winter  wheat  in  Nebraska  and  Kansas, 
the  two  largest  wheat-growing  States  in  the  Union  — 
chiefly  winter  wheat  —  became  popular,  not  so  much 
because  of  its  profits,  as  because  it  matures  before  the 
dreaded  hot  winds  come,  and  was  frequently  an  abun- 
dant crop,  when  spring  wheat  and  other  wheat  sub- 
stitutes were  destroyed. 

As  a  "  safety-first  "  war  measure,  the  sowing  of 
winter  wheat,  especially,  should  have  been  stimulated 
to  the  limit.  A  hot  wind  next  August  may  be  a 
greater  menace  to  our  cause  than  the  appearance  of 
Hun  submarines  off  our  Atlantic  Coast.  But  for  price 
fixing,  the  temporarily  abnormally  high  prices  of 
wheat  would,  in  my  opinion,  have  so  stimulated  the 
growing  of  that  cereal,  that  we  would  not  only  have 
had  an  abundant  supply,  both  for  export  and  home 
use,  but  that  this  extra  supply  would  have  resulted  in 
prices  no  higher  than  are  now  being  paid,  especially  by 
the  consumer. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  effect  of  price-fixing,  in  a 
certain  locality  in  Illinois,  where  wheat,  especially  win- 
ter wheat,  for  many  years  had  been  unprofitable,  and 
hence  practically  abandoned,  one  farmer  had  an  abun- 
dant harvest  —  thirty  bushels  per  acre  —  of  high 
grade  wheat,  then  worth  $3  a  bushel.  He  was  ready 
to  sell.  This  price  and  yield  appealed  to  the  farmers 
of  that  community;  so  many  of  diem  applied  for  seed, 

109 


no  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

that  the  farmer  withheld  nearly  a  carload  of  wheat 
for  his  neighbors,  estimating  that  sufficient  to  sow  200 
to  250  acres  would  be  required.  The  price  to  be  paid 
was  the  Chicago  price  on  date  of  delivery,  less  freight 
and  commission.  Not  long  after  that,  the  Govern- 
ment fixed  the  price  of  such  wheat  at  $2  per  bushel, 
Chicago  (about  $1.85  to  $1.90  per  bushel  to  the 
farmer).  When  sowing  time  came,  only  two  of  all 
the  farmers  who  had  applied  for  seed  called  for  it  — 
those  two  taking  14^^  bushels,  just  enough  to  sow 
9J^  acres,  instead  of  200  to  250  acres.  The  only 
reason  offered  for  not  sowing  more  wheat  was  that  the 
price  fixed  was  too  low  to  justify  sowing,  and  taking 
the  hazard  of  crop  loss  or  shortage.  If  the  largest  pos- 
sible acreage  is  sown  in  the  coming  year  in  the  strictly 
wheat-growing  sections,  it  will  not  be  sufficient  to  sup- 
ply our  Allies,  our  armies  and  home  consumption.  If 
this  amount  is  secured,  it  must  be  by  inducing  a  mul- 
titude of  farmers,  in  localities  where  wheat  has  not 
been  a  profitable  crop,  to  plant  wheat. 

According  to  recent  press  reports,  we,  in  19 17, 
shipped  to  our  Allies,  132,000,000  bushels  of  wheat. 
During  the  years  1914,  1915  and  1916,  after  deduct- 
ing seven  bushels  per  capita  to  feed  their  own  inhabit- 
ants and  re-seed  their  fields,  Kansas  and  Nebraska 
alone  had  an  annual  average  surplus  of  175,613,192 
bushels  of  wheat.  With  unrestricted  prices,  these  two 
States  can  be  safely  counted  upon  for  more  than  all 
that  was  sent  to  the  Allies  last  year.  According  to 
reported  yield  for  19 17  and  estimated  yield  for  19 18, 
under  restricted  prices,  the  surplus  will  be  little,  if  any 
more,  than  one-half  that  amount. 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  III 

Wheat  is  grown  in  every  State  from  Maine  to 
Texas.  Had  farmers  not  been  discouraged  by  price 
restriction,  in  my  opinion,  the  temporarily  high  price 
would  have  flooded  the  markets,  and  we  would  have 
now  been  eating  good  wheat  flour,  instead  of  substi- 
tutes, and  at  a  lower  price. 

The  great  monopolies  and  other  trade  combinations 
in  food  stuffs,  hurtful  alike  to  the  agricultural  and 
consuming  public,  were  built  up  on  discriminating 
freight  rates  —  discrimination  between  cities  and 
towns,  as  well  as  between  individual  merchants  and 
manufacturers. 

These  combinations  are  so  strongly  entrenched  that 
there  is  exceedingly  small  hope  that  the  iniquitous 
practices  inaugurated  by  them  can  be  eliminated  or 
even  appreciably  checked,  except  by  a  reversal  of  these 
transportation  methods  which  brought  them  into  being. 
To  this  end,  freight  rates  on  foodstuffs,  at  least,  should 
be  established  on  an  initial  charge  for  loading  and 
unloading,  with  high  and  graduated  demurrage  charges 
as  a  penalty  for  delay.  To  these  initial  or  terminal 
charges  should  be  added  a  fixed  rate  per  mile.  This 
would  tend  to  minimizing  mileage,  eliminating  that 
which  was  unnecessary,  and  thus  tremendously  reduc- 
ing the  expense  for  rolling  stock,  labor  and  fuel.  It 
would  reduce  the  hurtful  and  unnecessary  congestion 
of  men  and  material  in  our  great  cities,  bettering  the 
health  —  physical,  moral  and  economic  —  of  our  peo- 
ple. It  would  build  up  a  multitude  of  more  prosper- 
ous, but  smaller  cities.  There  is  no  valid  reason  why 
we  should  not  have  hundreds  of  independent  packing 
concerns,  instead  of  one  score,  and  practically,  as  is 


112  THE   FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

now  generally  believed,  under  one  control,  with  all  the 
possibilities  of  profiteering  and  market  manipulation. 
So  long  as  these  iniquitous  practices  are  made  easy, 
they  will  continue  to  increase.  Milling  and  other  in- 
dustrial enterprises  would  spring  up  in  these  small 
cities,  to  the  great  advantage  of  producers,  consumers 
and  laborers;  live  stock  would  be  slaughtered  at  the 
nearest  packing  town;  and  the  grain  shipped  to  the 
nearest  mill;  greatly  reducing  the  cost  of  living  to 
wage  and  salary  earners,  and  giving  them  better  sur- 
roundings ;  and  at  the  same  time  increasing  the  farm- 
ers' profits. 

It  is  absurd  that  cattle  and  hogs  in  Central  Iowa 
must  be  shipped  to  Chicago  or  Kansas  City  for  slaugh- 
tering; and  wheat  shipped  to  Minneapolis  to  be 
ground;  and  a  large  proportion  of  cured  meats  and 
flour  shipped  back  again  to  the  communities  from 
which  the  wheat  and  live  stock  came. 

Every  unnecessary  expense  in  the  exchange  of  com- 
modities must  be  deducted  from  the  price  received  by 
producers,  or  added  to  the  price  paid  by  the  consum- 
ers. Men  who  "labor  for  those  things  which  make 
for  righteousness  "  and  physical  health,  should  be  in- 
terested in  this.  Great  cities,  from  time  immemorial, 
have  been  the  plague  spots  of  civilization. 

Because  the  small  manufacturers  of  New  England 
found  that  on  account  of  discriminating  freight  rates 
they  must  first  ship  their  wares  to  the  seaboard,  and 
from  there  reship  them  to  the  consuming  centers  of 
the  West,  they  moved  these  factories  to  cities  on  the 
coast.  With  their  exit  from  the  rural  communities, 
New  England  agriculture  began  to  wane,  and  farm 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  II 3 

abandonment  followed.  Very  low  rates  on  through 
—  not  local  —  freight  from  the  West  still  further 
helped  to  bring  disaster  to  the  New  England  farmer. 

The  exemption  of  farm  laborers  from  the  draft  has 
not  been  as  successful  as  was  hoped  it  might  be. 
From  various  causes,  it  often  happens  that  the  effi- 
cient are  taken,  and  the  inefficient  left.  Why  should 
not  the  really  efficient  farm  laborers  in  each  canton- 
ment be  selected  and  placed  in  separate  regiments  — 
these  to  be  subjected  to  intensive  training  from  No- 
vember 1st  to  March  ist;  and  on  March  ist,  each  year, 
to  be  detailed  for  farm  work  under  such  restrictions 
as  would  result  in  the  prompt  recall  of  the  labor  slacker 
and  his  transfer  to  the  Front? 

This  would  secure  for  the  farms  efficient  help  dur- 
ing those  months  when  skilled  men  are  indispensable. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  possibility  of  an  attempted 
invasion  makes  at  least  one  or  more  thoroughly  dis- 
ciplined army  corps  at  home  desirable.  The  intensive 
training  and  manual  labor  in  the  open  would  keep  the 
men  at  all  times  fit  and  ready  for  active  service  at  a 
moment's  notice.  Hence,  such  a  system  would  be  of 
maximum  aid  to  agriculture,  and  of  minimum,  if  any, 
detriment  to  our  war  machinery. 

I  have  never  seen  so  many  able-bodied  men  on  the 
highways  of  the  rural  districts,  ostensibly  seeking  la- 
bor, but  in  reality  trying  to  avoid  it  and  to  escape  the 
draft,  as  during  the  present  season.  Farmers  will  not 
hire  them.  Not  so  much  because  of  the  extortionate 
wage  demanded,  as  because  they  lack  both  inclination 
and  ability  to  do  effective  farm  work. 

The  learned  discussions  and  formidable  array  of  fig- 


114  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

ures  to  show  the  cost  of  producing  cereals  on  the  av- 
erage American  farm  are  as  obviously  absurd  as  it 
would  be  to  attempt  to  solve  a  mathematical  problem 
without  fixed,  permanent  factors. 

Take  wheat :  No  system  or  method  has  as  yet  been 
attempted,  which,  if  carried  out,  would  show  with  any 
degree  of  accuracy  the  exact  total  acreage;  the  total 
yield;  the  amount  of  home  consumption;  the  amount 
fed  or  wasted  on  the  farms  and  in  transit,  etc.  All 
conclusions  reached  have  been  based  upon  estimates. 
In  a  multitude  of  these  hypothetical  problems  exam- 
ined, I  fail  to  find  one  wherein  the  ratio  of  acreage 
sown  to  the  acreage  actually  harvested  has  been  taken 
into  consideration  —  that  is,  any  allowance  made  for 
the  millions  of  acres  every  year  winter  killed,  taken 
by  the  chinch  bug  and  the  Hessian  fly,  or  destroyed 
by  drought  and  flood,  and  deduction  made  for  the 
tremendous  loss  in  labor,  seed  and  use  of  land  result- 
ing therefrom. 

In  my  own  experience,  three  out  of  eight  years  my 
wheat  winter  killed.  One  crop  on  account  of  soil 
puddling  in  the  spring  —  something  I  never  heard  of 
before — failed  to  produce  a  single  bushel  of  mer- 
chantable grain,  and  only  a  trifling  amount  of  feed. 
Two  years  the  yield  was  above  normal  —  two  below. 
The  net  results  being  that  the  total  amount  received 
for  wheat  sold  was  less  than  the  total  amount  paid 
for  seed  and  labor,  leaving  me  nothing  for  eight  years' 
use  of  the  land  or  interest  on  money  invested. 

During  the  last  few  months,  the  papers  have  been 
full  of  comments  (mostly  unfavorable)  concerning  the 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  II 5 

Non- Partisan  League  —  that  most  effective  combina- 
tion of  American  farmers  ever  organized.  It  took 
possession  of  North  Dakota  a  year  or  two  ago,  and 
but  for  the  war  would  now  hold  the  balance  of  political 
power  in  most,  if  not  all,  the  Corn  Belt  and  Pacific 
Coast  States. 

I  am  not  qualified  to  discuss  the  merits  or  demerits 
of  this  organization.  With  them,  as  with  every  man 
and  organization,  the  same  test  of  loyalty  should  be 
applied:  "Are  they  for  us  or  against  us?"  .  .  . 
"  Are  they  helping  or  hindering  our  war  activities  ?  " 
If  the  latter,  it  should  be  suppressed. 

One  thing,  however,  seldom,  if  ever,  mentioned  in 
the  press  should  burn  itself  into  the  consciousness  of 
every  thinking  American  citizen.  That  question  is 
this :  "  What  was  the  cause  of  this  widespread  dis- 
content, that  such  an  organization  is  possible?  That 
upon  their  bald  promise  of  bettering  marketing  con- 
ditions, without  tangible  evidence  that  they  could  make 
such  promise  good,  a  small  group  of  men  were  able 
to  induce  enough  farmers  of  that  little  State,  North 
Dakota,  to  contribute  $i6  per  capita,  until  these  en- 
thusiastic and  self-appointed  agricultural  reformers, 
or  agrarian  revolutionists,  had  more  than  a  million  in 
cash  at  their  disposal  to  carry  on  their  propaganda  ?  " 

Discontent,  widespread  and  bitter,  because  of  mar- 
keting conditions,  is  the  only  way  to  account  for  this 
movement.  To  silence  discontent,  without  removing 
its  cause,  makes  that  discontent  doubly  dangerous. 
Discontent  is  the  only  soil  in  which  the  seeds  of  revo- 
lution and  anarchy  grow.     Restricting  prices  of  the 


Il6  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

farmers'  products,  while  leaving  prices  of  the  planters' 
products  unrestricted ;  restricting  the  wage  —  earnings 
—  of  the  farmer,  while  advancing  and  multiplying  the 
wage  of  organized  labor,  is  not  tending  to  eliminate 
this  already  alarming  discontent. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

Professor  Liebig  said,  "  Agriculture  is,  of  all  in- 
dustrial pursuits,  the  richest  in  facts  and  the  poorest 
in  their  comprehension."  This  is  true  to-day,  and  be- 
cause of  these  misapprehensions  on  the  part  of  law- 
givers and  the  public,  the  last  two  decades,  instead 
of  being  years  of  universal  prosperity  to  the  whole 
American  people,  have  been  years  in  which  farm  mort- 
gage indebtedness  and  millionaires  have  multiplied; 
and  especially  in  agricultural  districts,  the  tendency 
towards  "  industrious  poverty  '* —  the  most  sickening 
spectacle  in  economic  life  —  has  increased.  Hence,  it 
may  not  be  out  of  place  to  mention  some  of  these  mis- 
apprehensions. 

One :  That  a  land  boom  or  radical  increase  in  the 
selling  price  of  land  is  attributable  to  the  increased 
profits  in  farm  operations.  On  the  contrary,  the  land 
boom  was  entirely  attributable  to  other  causes,  the 
three  chief  est  among  them  being:  First:  The  in- 
creased output  of  gold  —  reducing  the  purchasing 
value  of  the  dollar  —  making  apparent  profits  where 
none  existed.  Second :  The  reflect  effect  of  "  Fren- 
zied Finance "  which  drove  thousands  of  investors 
from  railway  and  industrial  securities  into  the  farm 
mortgage  market  —  resulting  in  such  a  plethora  of 
money  that  it  was  persistently  urged  upon  farmers  at 
lower  rates  of  interest,  and  upon  more  favorable  terms 

"7 


Il8  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

and  conditions.  Third:  Last,  but  not  least,  that 
many  farmers,  despairing  of  profits  in  food  produc- 
tion, ceased  to  be  producers,  and  became  speculators 
in  land. 

Another  great  misapprehension  is  that  since  1893 
the  profits  in  farming  operations  have  been  tremen- 
dously increased,  and  have  been  vastly  greater  than 
during  any  previous  period.  Table  No.  10  shows  the 
average  market  price  of  five  leading  commodities,  upon 
which  the  farmers'  profits  are  chieiiy  based,  and  are 
an  accurate  index  of  all  others.  That  is,  if  the  price 
of  any  of  these  be  depressed,  it  results  in  an  increased 
production  of  all  others  as  a  general  price  leveling. 

Table  No.  10 

ANNUAL  AVERAGE  PRICE  — FARM  PRODUCTS 

Years  Wheat      Corn       Oats    Mess  Pork  Lard 

1873  to  1893   96.76       47.36       32.55        14.87        8.42 

1893  to  1916  88.32        50.04        34.4  14.63        8.249 


—8.44      +2.68      +1.95'       —.24      —.18 


For  example :  It  will  be  seen  that  wheat,  the  lead- 
ing farm  product,  brought  8.44  cents  per  bushel  more 
during  the  period  between  1873  and  1893,  than  it  did 
during  the  period  from  1893  to  19 16;  the  decline  in 
the  wheat  price  being  nearly  double  the  advance  in 
both  com  and  oats.  A  change  in  the  price  of  hog 
"  Products  "  was  slight,  but  lower  during  the  latter  pe- 
riod. The  price  of  labor,  however,  not  only  on  the 
farm,  but  labor  in  everything  the  farmer  has  to  buy, 
has  so  continuously  advanced,  that  in  191 5  the  wage 
of  the  farm  hand  was  more  than  double  what  it  was 
in  1892.     Eighty-five  per  cent,  of  all  the  farmer  buys 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  II9 

is  labor  in  some  form.  The  value  of  the  raw  material 
is  an  exceedingly  small  part  of  the  price  paid.  He  who 
can  discover  how  he  can  increase  profits  by  paying 
more  for  what  he  buys,  and  receiving  less  for  what  he 
sells,  will  put  himself  in  the  class  of  Edison  and 
Wright. 

Again,  there  is  a  general  impression  that  vast  im- 
provements have  been  made  in  farm  machinery  and 
farm  implements  in  the  last  twenty  years.  Nothing 
can  be  more  erroneous.  Since  1826,  when  that  Eng- 
lish clergyman  put  the  first  reaper  into  a  field  of  grain, 
scarcely  more  than  a  dozen  implements  in  general  use 
and  thought  indispensable  for  the  average  farm,  have 
been  invented.  Chiefest  among  these  are  the  mower, 
the  hay  tedder,  hay  loader,  horse  rake,  horse  fork  for 
unloading  hay,  the  reaper  and  binder,  applying  to  both 
com  and  small  grain,  the  check-row  corn  planter,  the 
disc  harrow,  the  manure  spreader,  the  corn  sheller,  etc., 
all  of  which  were  in  general  use  long  prior  to  1893, 
many  of  them  for  forty  years.  Since  the  Farm  Im- 
plement business  became  monopolized,  improvements 
in  them,  if  any,  have  been  chiefly  to  aid  sales  —  not 
to  add  to  their  utility.  The  gasoline  or  oil  motor  has 
not  yet  become  an  appreciable  factor  in  agriculture, 
and  its  practical  utility  on  the  average  farm  has  not 
been  fully  demonstrated.  On  a  drive  of  over  six  hun- 
dred miles  last  Fall,  studying  crop  conditions  in  the 
best  sections  of  Illinois  and  Iowa,  I  saw  only  four 
tractors  at  work  on  nearly  2,400  farms,  under  observa- 
tion, and  this  too  at  a  time  when  Fall  plowing  and  Fall 
seeding  should  have  been  in  full  swing. 

That  the  lack  of  the  farmers'  credit  has  interfered 


I20  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

with  agriculture  is  another  misapprehension.  In  one 
thing,  and  that  is  credit,  the  farmer  has  for  forty 
years  been  on  a  parity  with  those  engaged  in  other 
industries.  There  is  no  section,  in  the  Com  Belt,  at 
least,  where  the  farmer  has  not  during  those  years 
been  able  to  borrow  money  at  lower  rates  of  interest 
and  on  better  terms  and  conditions  than  the  country 
merchant,  small  manufacturer,  the  professional  man 
in  his  locality,  or  the  city  man  borrowing  a  similar 
amount.  One  owning  a  first  class  or  average  home  in 
Chicago  or  Omaha,  and  also  owning  a  first-class  or 
average  farm  in  Illinois  or  Nebraska,  could  borrow 
money  at  lower  rates  of  interest  on  his  farm  than  on 
his  home,  and  will  find  that  lenders  much  prefer  to 
loan  to  the  owner  and  occupant  of  the  farm  adjoining 
his,  than  to  him. 

Another  erroneous  belief  is  that  by  crop  rotation 
and  live  stock  raising,  the  soil  may  be  kept  up  to  its 
virgin  fertility.  That  is  utterly  impossible,  and  is 
contradicted  by  every  scientific  experiment  made  in 
ninety  years.  Even  to  the  novice  in  chemistry,  that 
is  obvious,  as  potash,  phosphorus  and  nitrogen,  the 
chief  soil  elements,  are  the  essential,  invaluable  ele- 
ments in  all  food  stuffs,  and  they  are  taken  from  the 
soil  with  every  pound  of  meat  or  grain  sold.  By  what 
alchemy  shall  we  recover  these,  and  by  what  legerde- 
main put  them  back  into  the  fields  ?  Many  believe  that 
by  pasturing  alone,  the  soil  is  rejuvenated  and  brought 
back  to  its  pristine  fertility.  They  fail  to  realize  that 
the  animal  returns  nothing  to  the  soil  except  that 
which  he  has  first  taken  from  the  soil,  and  only  a  part 
of  that,  as  every  drop  of  blood,  every  ounce  of  flesh 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  121 

or  bone  contains  a  portion  of  these  precious  soil  ele- 
ments—  called  precious,  simply  because  they  are  in- 
dispensable elements  in  blood,  bone  and  tissue  building. 
Nearly,  if  not  all,  plants  that  have  the  ability  to  draw 
nitrogen  from  the  air  are  imsuited  and  dangerous  as 
grazing  for  all  meat  animals  except  the  hog,  as  they 
cause  bloat.  The  other  animals,  while  they  may  graze 
on  clover,  alfalfa,  etc.,  for  a  time,  under  certain  con- 
ditions of  moisture  and  temperature,  a  single  day,  or 
even  a  few  hours,  are  sufficient  to  exterminate  a 
healthy,  vigorous  herd. 

Experience  in  this  country  has  been  that  after  thirty- 
five  to  forty  years'  use,  crop  rotation  and  stock  feed- 
ing, it  has  not  been  possible  to  keep  land  up  to  more 
than  50  per  cent,  of  its  virgin  fertility ;  and  to  do  that, 
it  is  necessary  to  use  vastly  more  manure  than  is  made 
upon  the  farm  itself.  The  use  of  other  fertilizers  on 
market  is  an  expensive  proposition,  and  is  discussed 
elsewhere.  The  most  successful  farmers  in  the  Corn 
Belt,  during  the  last  thirty  years,  have  been  those  who 
fed  no  meat  animals,  but  instead  sold  their  grain  on 
the  market. 

One  of  the  most  groundless,  widespread  and  hurtful 
misapprehensions  is  in  regard  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
American  farmer.  The  public  in  general  has  been  led 
to  believe  that  since  1896  the  farmers*  prosperity  has 
been  unusually  great  and  uninterrupted;  that  farm 
mortgage  indebtedness  has  been  so  rapidly  decreased, 
that  it  has  almost  reached  the  vanishing  point;  that 
scientific  principles  and  practices  have  been  applied  to 
agriculture  as  never  before  in  the  history  of  this,  or 
any  other,  country.     Were  these  things  true,  many  of 


122  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

the  most  perplexing  economic  questions  would  never 
have  been  raised,  and  in  case  they  had,  would  have 
speedily  furnished  their  own  answer,  but  as  I  have 
shown,  these  things  are  not  true ;  that  on  the  contrary, 
the  farm  mortgage  indebtedness  has  not  only  during 
all  these  years  been  increasing  at  an  enormous  rate, 
without  anything  like  an  adequate  increase  in  the  farm- 
ers' assets,  but  at  the  same  time  there  has  been  an 
almost  constant  decrease  in  the  number  of  men  on  the 
farms  to  meet  this  indebtedness;  that  the  increased 
acreage  yield  of  cereals,  if  any  at  all,  is  more  than 
accounted  for  by  the  abandonment  of  worn-out  lands 
and  the  bringing  of  new  lands  into  cultivation. 
Though  only  between  one  and  two  bushels  less  than  the 
average,  the  winter  wheat  yield  for  191 6  was  the  low- 
est in  twenty-five  years  or  more,  12.2  bushels  per  acre. 
I  have  suggested  that  the  large  number  of  people 
speculating  in  farm  lands  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
the  matter,  especially  in  the  suppressing  of  unfavorable 
facts.  Two  recent  news  items  suggest  a  source  of  this 
misinformation,  if  not  mal-information,  which,  in  my 
opinion,  exceeds  all  others.  Two  editors  were  aspir- 
ing for  the  same  high  office.  One  accused  the  other 
of  publishing  as  news  items  speciously  written  arti- 
cles, prepared  by  large  commercial  interests  and  in- 
tended to  mislead  and  divert  attention  from  their  enor- 
mous profits.  From  the  controversy  between  these 
two,  it  would  seem  that  that  sort  of  perversion  of  the 
news  columns  for  profit  was  not  unusual,  but  on  the 
contrary  quite  common.  The  other  was  in  an  article 
written  by  Mr.  Frank  Stockbridge,  entitled  "  Edward 
A.  Rumely,  Man  Who  Bought  the  New  York  Mail 


THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  1 23 

for  the  Kaiser."  In  this,  Mr.  Stockbridge  quotes  him- 
self as  saying  to  Mr.  Rumely:  "I  don't  care  what 
you  put  on  the  editorial  page  —  that  influences  no- 
body." ..."  The  place  where  poison  works  is  in  the 
news." 

As  one  illustration  of  how  this  works  in  matters 
pertaining  to  agriculture,  I  would  say  that  the  tremen- 
dous number  of  land  sales,  during  recent  years,  has 
had  this  effect  upon  the  farm  mortgage  business:  viz., 
that  perhaps  40  per  cent,  of  all  the  business  done 
throughout  the  year  is  transacted  during  February  and 
March ;  that  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  to  avoid  inter- 
ference with  farm  operations,  possession  of  land  is  al- 
most invariably  taken  on  the  first  day  of  March. 
Hence,  practically  all  sales  of  farm  lands,  made 
throughout  the  year,  provide  for  closing  on  the  first 
day  of  March,  and  a  very  large  proportion  of  all  mort- 
gages are  made  payable  on  that  date.  To  avoid  loss  of 
interest,  or  payment  of  double  interest,  the  money, 
both  on  account  of  land  purchased  and  for  taking  up 
old  mortgages,  must  be  paid  on  the  first  day  of  March. 
Hence,  to  prepare  for  this,  the  mortgages  are  made  — 
many  of  them,  several  months  before;  but  practically 
all  of  them  executed  and  filed  for  record  prior  to  the 
first  day  of  March,  with  the  provision  that  they  begin 
to  draw  interest  on  that  date.  The  inevitable  result 
is  that  in  nearly  all  of  this  vast  volume  of  business,  the 
mortgages  are  recorded  prior  to  the  first  day  of  March, 
and  the  releases,  or  satisfaction  of  the  old  mortgages, 
are  filed  after  that  date.  With  the  result,  that  there 
is  in  each  March  a  tremendous  amount  of  mortgages 
released,   and  comparatively  a  very   few  mortgages 


124  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

filed.  I  have  observed  that  statements  of  the  amounts 
of  mortgages  filed  and  released  in  the  month  of  March 
in  various  counties  find  their  way,  not  only  into  the 
local  papers,  but  into  the  press  dispatches  and  the  pat- 
ent inside  of  small  papers.  From  these  items,  the  lay 
reader  would  assume  that  that  community  must  be 
rapidly  wiping  out  its  farm  mortgage  indebtedness; 
while  had  the  corresponding  items  for  February  been 
published,  he  would  assume  that  the  same  community 
was  tremendously  and  hopelessly  in  debt. 

Local  pride  might  account  for  the  appearance  of 
these  misleading  items  in  the  rural  press,  but  it  would 
hardly  account  for  their  appearance  in  press  dispatches 
and  elsewhere  throughout  the  country,  unaccompanied 
by  any  figures  or  statements  indicating  that  these  were 
unusual,  or  figures  to  show  the  total  or  relative 
amounts  of  mortgages  made  and  released  throughout 
the  year.  A  better  understanding  between  the  con- 
suming and  producing  classes  would  be  helpful  to  both, 
and  a  tremendous  factor  in  the  prevention  of  profiteer- 
ing. 

Another  serious  misapprehension,  one  under  which 
perhaps  the  majority  of  the  American  people  labor, 
is  that  the  small  farm  and  intensive  farming,  if  not 
one  and  the  same  thing,  are  inseparable.  Nothing  is 
further  from  the  truth.  The  large  number  of  experi- 
ments made  by  the  Federal  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture, Agricultural  Universities  and  others,  show  that 
small  farming  tends  neither  to  better  conditions  of  the 
farm,  larger  profits  to  the  farmer,  improved  living 
conditions,  increased  yield,  nor  better  quality  of  prod- 
ucts.    That  these  things  must  be  true  is  obvious.     The 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  1 25 

farm  is  a  factory  wherein  the  soil  elements  are  con- 
verted into  food  stuffs.  Hence,  the  same  principles 
and  methods  which  have  enabled  American  manufac- 
turers to  excel  all  others  must  be  recognized  and  ap- 
plied. 

One  of  the  first  is  the  combination  and  division  of 
labor,  resulting  in  greater  efficiency  and  output,  and  at 
the  same  time  minimizing  equipment  and  investment, 
and  making  a  greater  diversity  of  crops  possible.  In 
this,  as  in  all  other  business  enterprises,  only  a  small 
percentage  of  men  are  found  endowed  with  initiative 
—  the  ability  to  direct  one's  own  efforts  to  his  own 
greatest  good  —  hence,  it  transpires,  that  four  men, 
one  capable  of  directing  the  efforts  of  all  on  320  acres 
of  land,  will  produce  larger  and  better  crops  and  mar- 
ket same  with  less  expenditure  of  time  and  labor,  than 
will  five  men  on  400  acres,  independently  working  80 
acres  each.  To  make  my  meaning  more  clear:  The 
operative  in  a  New  England  shoe  factory  is  now  work- 
ing shorter  hours  for  larger  pay  under  better  condi- 
dions,  and  is  in  every  material  way  better  off  than 
was  his  grandfather  —  the  independent  cobbler. 
Why?  Chiefly,  if  not  solely,  because  a  higher  degree 
of  intelligence,  or  an  especially  qualified  intelligence, 
directs  his  efforts.  And  why  does  this  higher  intelli- 
gence direct  the  efforts  of  his  workmen?  Simply  be- 
cause it  pays,  and  until  the  farm  is  placed  on  the 
same  basis  as  other  factories,  the  American  farms  and 
farmers  will  continue  toward  a  constantly  lowering 
level. 

Great  landed  estates,  such  as  exist  abroad,  would  be 
both  undesirable  and  undemocratic,  as  other  vast  ac- 


126  THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

cumulations  of  wealth  are,  and  for  the  same  reason : 
viz. —  because  of  the  centralization  of  power.  How- 
ever, British  landlordism  has  never  been  so  oppressive 
to  the  tenants  as  trade  combinations  are  to  the  Amer- 
ican farmer.  It  never  forced  the  tenant  to  take  $3.76 
per  hundred  weight  less  for  his  hogs  than  it  cost  him 
to  produce  them.     (See  Table  No.  i.) 

On  the  other  hand,  if  ownership  of  land  in  this 
country  is  to  be  restricted,  it  will  be  unfortunate  — 
if  the  maximum  to  be  held  by  one  individual  shall  be 
made  less  than  can  be  economically  operated.  Bulle- 
tin No.  41,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture, 
already  referred  to,  shows  —  and  observation  and  ex- 
perience confirms  —  that  the  renter's  profit  on  money 
invested  is  twelve  times  that  of  the  farm  owner. 
Hence,  to  advise  or  encourage  the  man  of  small  means 
to  at  once  buy  a  farm  would  be  both  unkind  and  un- 
economic. Yet  this  theory  was  a  stock  argument  in 
the  Federal  Land  Bank  campaign,  and  is  adding  ma- 
terially in  continuing  the  land  boom. 

In  addition  to  the  experience,  observation  and  the- 
ories in  our  own  country,  the  history  and  experience 
of  others  and  older  countries  tend  to  prove  that  small 
farming,  a  decline  in  agriculture  and  impoverishment 
and  degradation  of  the  farmer,  go  together.  In  India 
the  farms  vary  in  size  from  two  to  twenty  acres  — 
the  average  said  to  be  less  than  ten  —  and  though 
nearly  95  per  cent,  of  the  population  is  engaged  in 
agriculture,  scarce  a  decade  passes  without  famine  in 
some  part  of  the  realm.  In  1770,  during  nine  months, 
10,000,000  died  of  starvation  in  one  province.     The 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM  1 27 

famines  of  1877  to  i8'78,  and  those  from  1897  to  1900 
were  severe. 

Another  misapprehension  is  that  our  retired  farmers 
left  the  farms  because  they  wished  more  fully  to  enjoy 
their  accumulated  wealth.  Not  so,  but  because  the 
intelligent  boy  and  girl  will  not  continue  unremunera- 
tive  labor  on  the  farm,  while  lucrative  vocations  are 
open  to  them,  and  laborers  cannot  be  hired  to  take 
their  places.  These  children  have  been  told  of  luxury 
that  they  might  enjoy  "  after  the  mortgage  is  lifted.'' 
But  instead  of  being  paid,  they  have  seen  the  mort- 
gage increase  from  year  to  year,  and  the  hope  of  better 
things  on  the  farm  has  died  within  them  —  they  have 
gone  to  the  cities  —  the  cities  and  the  sea  are  the  only 
places  left.  "  The  boundless  plains  and  the  mountain 
places  "  are  occupied. 

The  condition  of  the  retired  farmer  is  best  illus- 
trated by  the  remarks  of  a  merchant  in  a  Southern 
California  town,  where  a  large  number  of  retired 
farmers  had  settled :  viz. — "  These  retired  farmers  are 
no  benefit  to  a  town.  One  motorman  on  an  interurban 
trolley  buys  more  groceries  than  three  or  four  of  them. 
At  first,  I  thought  them  a  stingy  lot  of  misers,  but 
since  becoming  a  director  in  the  bank  down  street,  I 
have  watched  their  accounts,  and  when  I  see  their 
meager  incomes  coming  in  in  driblets  from  month  to 
month,  and  observe  that  a  large  proportion  of  them 
about  the  first  of  March  each  year  buys  a  good-sized 
draft,  payable  to  some  Eastern  loan  concern,  to  meet 
interest  due  on  his  farm  mortgage,  I  changed  my  mind, 
and  I  can  now  understand  why  they  are  saving.     Why 


128  THE   FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM 

they  are  always  ready  to  do  odd  jobs  about  the  store; 
rake  my  yard,  mow  my  lawn,  and  bring  a  few  fresh 
eggs  and  a  little  milk  to  my  house  before  breakfast 
every  morning." 

Another  gross  misapprehension  being  made,  more 
far  reaching  and  injurious  in  its  effects,  by  the  so- 
called  "  Farm  Labor  Agencies,"  is  this :  That  it  is 
only  at  harvest  time  that  there  is  a  serious  shortage  of 
farm  labor.     Nothing  could  be  further  wrong. 

Except  in  a  few  restricted  localities,  where  wheat  is 
grown  to  the  exclusion  of  other  crops  —  these  should 
not  exist,  as  they  result  in  financial  vicissitude  for  the 
community,  greater  market  fluctuation  and  soil  im- 
poverishment, than  mixed  farming  —  I  say,  that  ex- 
cept in  these  very  limited  sections,  the  farm  having 
adequate  labor  during  the  rest  of  the  year  needs  no 
additional  help  at  harvest  time.  This  is  obvious  to 
any  one  at  all  versed  in  practical  farming  and  familiar 
with  the  history  of  the  development  and  improvement 
of  farm  machinery. 

Forty  years  ago,  with  the  best  implements  then  in 
use,  a  harvesting  crew  required  from  eight  to  ten  men 
as  follows: 

One  man  to  drive  the  reaper. 

One  man  to  rake  off,  leaving  the  grain  in  gavels  — 
loose  bunches  —  to  be  raked  together  and  bound  into 
bundles  by  hand. 

It  required  four  extra  good  —  usually  five  —  men 
to  bind  the  grain  as  fast  as  cut. 

It  required  one  man  to  carry  the  bundles  together, 
and  still  another  to  put  them  into  shock ;  thus  necessi- 


THE   FOOD   CRISIS   AND  AMERICANISM  1 29 

tating  eight  or  nine  men,  and  for  these,  ten  acres  was 
considered  a  good  day's  work. 

To-day  only  one  man  is  needed  to  drive  and  operate 
the  harvester.  This  machine  not  only  reaps  the  grain, 
binds  it  into  bundles,  but  leaves  the  bundles  in  piles, 
so  that  there  is  only  one  man  needed  to  set  them  into 
shock.  For  these  two  men,  twelve  to  fourteen  acres 
is  considered  a  fair  day's  work,  so  that  these  two  men 
to-day  are  doing  more  and  better  work  in  the  harvest 
field,  than  nine  could  possibly  do  with  the  implements 
in  use  forty  years  ago. 

In  no  other  department  of  farm  work  has  labor- 
saving  implements  reduced  the  man-power  to  one-half 
the  extent  as  in  the  harvesting  of  small  grain. 

The  appalling  fact  is  that  because  of  the  lack  of 
labor  from  the  first  day  of  seeding  time  to  the  ripen- 
ing of  the  harvest,  the  grain  yield  has  been  reduced  to 
less  than  50  per  cent,  of  what  it  could  and  would  have 
been,  with  an  adequate  supply  of  efilicient  farm  labor. 

As  the  laggard  in  the  race  makes  as  strenuous  an 
effort  to  pass  the  pole  and  avoid  being  "  distanced  "  as 
the  leader  does  to  get  under  the  wire  and  win,  so,  fran- 
tic with  fear  lest  the  little  he  has  be  lost,  the  farmer 
cries  out  for  help  at  the  harvest  time.  This  appeal  is 
pitiful.  It  is  the  cry  of  "  that  spent  runner  who  al- 
most won  the  race." 

Of  all  erroneous  notions  concerning  agriculture, 
there  is  none  more  widespread  and  generally  accepted 
than  the  idea  that  brute  strength  and  animal  instinct 
are  all  that  are  necessary  in  a  farm  laborer;  that 
neither  experience  nor  intelligence  is  required. 


130  THE    FOOD   CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

Sixty  years  ago,  when  grain  was  cut  with  a  cradle, 
bound  by  hand  and  threshed  with  a  flail ;  when  hay  was 
cut  with  a  scythe,  and  handled  in  a  similar  manner; 
there  might  have  been  a  semblance  of  truth  in  such  a 
conclusion.  But  with  the  present-day  methods  and 
modem  machinery,  nothing  is  more  misleading  and 
mischievous.  In  no  other  industry  is  the  laborer  so 
independent  —  so  much  alone,  and  so  compelled  to  rely 
on  his  own  resources.  It  is  impracticable  to  have,  as 
in  other  industries,  some  one  over  him  to  guide,  direct 
and  stimulate  his  efforts.  So,  therefore,  ignorance 
and  indifference  are  fatal  defects;  hence,  the  absurdity 
of  most  of  this  just  now  popular  propaganda  of  mo- 
bilizing town  and  city  boys  and  girls  for  farm  work. 
In  a  few  special  lines  like  truck  farming,  fruit  grow- 
ing, etc.,  where  they  work  in  groups  under  an  overseer 
to  direct  and  encourage,  they  may  render  effective 
service,  but  in  the  fields  where  cereals,  etc.,  are  pro- 
duced, from  which  our  milk,  butter,  bread  and  meat 
come,  they  will  be  more  of  a  hindrance  than  a  help. 
To  avoid  loss  in  production  of  our  cereals,  implements 
and  machinery  must  be  utilized  to  the  greatest  possi- 
ble extent.  For  these  novices  to  attempt  to  handle  this 
complex  machinery,  under  unfavorable  conditions  in 
the  field,  is  dangerous  for  the  operator  and  invites  dis- 
aster to  the  machinery.  In  the  care  of  livestock,  they 
are  still  less  qualified. 

To  assume  that  a  few  hours',  days',  or  even  weeks', 
tutoring  by  theoretical  farmers,  salesmen  for  imple- 
ment houses,  etc.,  make  these  young  people  proficient, 
is  too  absurd  to  be  considered.  This  movement  is  a 
sample  of  the  "  camouflage  "  that  politicians  are  con- 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  I3I 

tinually  placing  before  the  farmers.  These  "  would- 
be  statesmen  "  fail  to  realize  that  the  masses,  like  chil- 
dren, are  less  wanting  in  comprehension  than  in  ex- 
pression, and  because  few  protests  are  heard,  assume 
that  their  nostrums  for  agricultural  ills  are  taken  with 
relish;  but  instead  they  are  engendering  discontent  in 
our  best  farming  communities.  This  discontent  was 
in  a  degree  reflected  in  the  political  land-slides  during 
the  last  three  years,  not  only  in  North  Dakota,  but  in 
such  States  as  Iowa,  Nebraska  and  Kansas. 

A  good  farm  hand  must  be  "  To  the  manor  bom," 
or  educated  by  long  experience.  He  must  be  wise  as 
to  the  needs  and  wants  of  plant  and  animal  life;  must 
have  learned  that  constant,  painstaking  care  is  neces- 
sary to  secure  success.  To  illustrate :  Not  long  since 
I  chanced  upon  one  of  these  inefficients  cultivating 
com  —  one  of  the  simplest  operations  on  the  farm. 
He  seemed  to  be  doing  his  best,  but  by  actual  count  was 
tearing  out  and  covering  up  more  than  one  hill  in  every 
ten,  so  that  in  going  once  over  the  field  (this  should 
be  done  four  times),  he  was  destroying  one-tenth  of 
the  com.  As  this  in  no  way  reduces  the  capital  in- 
vested, cost  of  seed,  labor,  etc.,  this  ten  per  cent,  must 
be  deducted  entirely  from  the  farmer's  profits.  As 
these  seldom  amount  to  ten  per  cent.,  that  man's  labor 
was  a  net  loss  to  his  employer. 

I  am  not  assuming  that  these  youngsters  could  not, 
if  they  would,  in  time  become  eflficient  farm  help,  but 
they  go  to  the  farm  with  no  such  purpose  —  instead 
they  are  moved  by  patriotic  impulse  to  render  tem- 
porary service  to  our  country  in  the  time  of  need.  To 
return  for  even  another  short  season,  or  to  make  agri- 


132  THE    FOOD    CRISIS   AND   AMERICANISM 

culture  a  permanent  vocation,  is  not  in  their  thoughts. 
At  first  the  novelty  of  the  situation  appeals  to  them, 
but  as  the  sweat  trickles  down  the  face,  enthusiasm 
soon  oozes  out  at  the  finger-tips,  and  one  soon  hears 
them  discanting  upon  the  advantages  and  beauties  of 
life  in  town  —  shorter  hours;  larger  pay;  "  the  bright 
lights  that  out-shine  the  stars  " ;  etc.  Such  influences 
on  the  rural  youth  serve  no  good  purpose,  but  instead 
make  for  discontent. 

Any  aid  or  stimulus  to  food  production  that  does 
not  make  for  permanent  agriculture  is  of  little  worth. 
Only  by  the  assurance  of  continuing  profits  can  Amer- 
ican Agriculture  be  rehabilitated.  To  do  this,  there 
must  be  a  radical  change  and  readjustment  of  labor 
and  marketing  conditions.  First  of  all,  an  adequate 
supply  of  laborers  who  are  willing  to  remain  upon  the 
farm.  These  will  be  wanting  so  long  as  present  con- 
ditions obtain. 

In  this  connection,  I  would  say  that  thus  far  the  fix- 
ing of  prices  of  farm  products  in  a  few  central  mar- 
kets has  failed  of  its  ostensible  purpose;  viz.,  to  secure 
to  the  producer  fair  and  remunerative  returns  for  his 
capital  and  labor,  and  at  the  same  time  reasonable 
prices  of  food  stuffs  to  consumers.  It  puts  little  or 
no  restraint  upon  the  profiteers.  Every  price  fixed 
by  the  Government  should  be  at  the  farmer's  nearest 
station  having  elevator  facilities.  In  no  other  way 
can  he  be  protected  from  the  profiteers. 

To  illustrate:  There  recently  came  under  my  ob- 
servation a  farmer  who  was  hauling  his  wheat  to  a 
station  five  miles  farther  from  the  central  market  and 
less  accessible  to  his  farm,  in  order  to  secure  a  rea- 


THE   FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  1 33 

sonable  price;  that  is,  at  the  first  station  they  would 
offer  him  only  $1.90  per  bushel,  while  at  the  second 
station,  with  no  better  facilities  for  handling,  he  re- 
ceived $2.10  per  bushel.  There  was  no  milling  done 
at  either  station  —  no  valid  reason  for  a  difference  in 
price.  So  long  as  such  iniquities  are  possible  they  will 
be  practiced.  If  the  Government  restricts  the  price 
of  commodities  it  should  insure  to  the  producer  his 
just  share  of  that  price.  Our  farmers  will  not  object 
to  price  restriction  so  long  as  they  feel  that  any  lack 
of  profit  to  them  results  entirely  to  the  benefit  of  our 
National  cause,  but  the  conviction  that  thus  far  the 
profit  of  price  restriction  on  farm  products  has  ac- 
crued chiefly  to  profiteers  in  food  stuffs  —  meat,  flour, 
etc., —  (see  recent  reports  of  Federal  Trade  Commis- 
sion) it  is  engendering  bitter  and  justifiable  resent- 
ment. Besides  this,  and  especially  as  the  railways  are 
now  operated  by  the  Government,  the  Food  Adminis- 
tration is  in  a  position  to  practice  great  economy  in 
transit.  To  illustrate:  Why  should  not  every  car- 
load of  wheat  be  billed  direct  to  the  nearest  mill  in 
need  of  it?  Or  if  not  immediately  required  by  the 
mills,  direct  to  the  seaboard  for  exporting,  thus  avoid- 
ing all  unnecessary  switching;  inspection;  elevator 
charges  and  commission  (these  were,  I  am  advised, 
paid  at  the  central  markets  even  during  those  months 
when  the  grain  could  go  only  to  the  Food  Administra- 
tion) as  well  as  high  local  rates  all  charged  to  the 
farmers  ? 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

The  farms  of  this  country  are  more  heavily  mort- 
gaged than  ever  before.  In  many  of  our  best  agri- 
cultural States,  the  majority  of  the  men  on  them  are 
tenants  or  hired  men,  with  little  or  no  capital,  less  edu- 
cation and  few  aspirations.  Many  of  them  foreign- 
ers, having  no  conception  of  our  free  institutions. 
This  situation  is  full  of  pathos  and  fraught  with  dan- 
gers—  not  simply  because  farms  are  mortgaged,  but 
because  those  mortgages  have,  during  fruitful  years, 
increased  more  rapidly  than  ever  before,  in  which 
millions  have  multiplied  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
traffic  in  food  stuffs  which  the  farms  produced.  Nor 
is  it  because  some  men  are  tenants  and  others  labor 
for  a  wage,  but  because  most  of  these  men  labor  with 
little  hope  of  ever  acquiring  a  competency  or  a  home 
of  their  own.  This  accumulation  of  propertyless  peo- 
ple on  our  farms  is  a  new  situation  —  a  new  phase  in 
the  economic  life  of  the  Nation.  How  long  will  this 
class  of  people,  if  they  continue  in  hopeless  toil,  turn 
a  deaf  ear  to  the  Socialists  and  the  Bolsheviki,  who 
expatiate  on  their  wrongs,  and  suggest  a  divison  of  all 
property  and  the  leveling  of  all  classes? 

Under  existing  war  conditions,  agriculture  has 
ceased  to  be  an  academic  question  to  be  dreamed  over 
by  school  masters  and  philanthropists,  and  to  be  eulo- 
gized by  politicians  and  profiteers;  but  has  become  a 

134 


THE    FOOD    CRISIS    AND   AMERICANISM  1 35 

vital  and  economic  one.  It  should  engage  the  seri- 
ous consideration  of  every  patriotic,  thinking  citizen. 
The  fate  of  our  Nation  may  depend  upon  its  early 
solution.  We  think  of  Nihilism,  Anarchy  and  Bol- 
shevism as  the  fruits  of  autocratic  despotism,  but  had 
commercial  despotism  not  united  with  monarchial  des- 
potism in  impoverishing  the  Russian  peasantry,  Bol- 
shevism would  have  found  neither  place  nor  influence 
in  International  affairs,  nor  Russia  be  a  national  wreck 
to-day.  Should  not  Americans  shun  as  a  contagion 
every  tendency  toward  impoverishing  our  rural  popu- 
lation ? 


THE   END 


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